


Sins of a Seraphim

by saint_troll



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bloodplay, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, NaNoWriMo, Polyamory, Purgatory, Season 8, Some D/s aspects, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-25
Updated: 2013-11-25
Packaged: 2018-01-02 15:35:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 50,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1058498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saint_troll/pseuds/saint_troll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel finds himself hurled into purgatory, believing he should serve penance for his sins; that he has lost everything.  He abandons Dean to draw away the Leviathan.  But then Dean goes and does something that only a Winchester would do... he finds him despite all odds.  Except, he now has a vampire at his side.  They must all come to terms with their evolving dependency, Castiel must accept his penance and the love of others... all the while trying to find the portal home.   And what happens once they finally make it topside?  How is their changed involvement with one another affected by the onward march of the hunter's daily life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to [Mildly Neurotic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mildly_Neurotic) for being my beta and cheerleader throughout the entire NaNoWriMo process!

Why does it always seem that no matter how hard I try to do something for the better good that I am inevitably judged? Judged for not being obedient? Judged for being too willful; or for having will at all? And then once I am miles down that path, I am judged for actually taking hold of my new found free will and running with it. 

This noose around my neck grows tighter each time I look in his eyes; knowing how he would feel if he truly knew what I’ve done. There is an oppressive shame that shadows my every step because...I have lied to him. I have betrayed his trust. 

Once sweet kisses shared between us now taste bitter on my lips. And I wonder if he senses it too. Does his tongue curl back into his mouth at the acerbic flavor? Do his lips press back against his teeth as the pungency clings to deeper recesses? Or is it just me?

I am trying. And I am trying for reasons that I believe to be righteous and just. The vested interest I have in the matter is of no import. I wholly believe that I would have chosen to save humanity with or without the Winchester’s well being on the chopping block.

So, why the secrecy? Why the lies? Because I know how they will perceive my actions. They will not be able to see that I am doing this for them. For him. Let us be honest here. As much as I would like to extrapolate on the virtues of my actions being for a greater good, I know in the center of my grace and from the very core of my heart that I am doing this all for him. For Dean. I would die for him. I have died for him. And I would do so again and again.

Consuming the souls of purgatory? I was not so naive to think that I had not been blatantly placing myself in mortal danger. Mortal danger. Let that sink in. I opted to follow a road that I was well aware could lead to my physical destruction. I was willing to chance the end of everything that is me… 

I love him. I love him in a way that I fear transcends mankind’s capacity of understanding. In the background of everything I do and every thought I have, he is there. When I am not in his presence, my being is inflamed with a beautiful torment. Memories of the touch of his skin, the sound of his breathing, his very scent; they satiate me until I can find reason to return to his side. 

And in my own way, I love them both. It is impossible to lay eyes upon the hunter’s counterpart and not see the humanity buried within the abomination.

If ever I was to know a slow death, a deal with the devil is it. There is always a new, yet singular way to avoid the latest and greatest apocalypse. It is the only way to triumph over Raphael and his genocidal followers… to triumph over Dick Roman and the Leviathan… to survive. I used to think that I was being clever and that I could outwit the likes of the King of Hell or even creatures older than God himself. I know better now. But the wheels are already in motion and without the guidance of a father I have long thought gone, I am left to choose my own path again and again. When both are fraught with wickedness, how am I to know which to road to follow?

This is my story. This is how an Angel of the Lord became God and lost everything. And yet, I have gained so much more.

It begins and ends with penance; a mortification of flesh. It begins in purgatory though it started long ago.

I once believed my time with the Winchesters, with Dean, to be simpler times. At first when doubt had just began to grow inside of me, I had felt the sudden clarity of free will to be a gift. I did not see it for what it truly was. When I had taken them… him… into my confidence, I never once thought that my actions were akin to sealing my own end. 

No, I was gloriously overcome by emotions that I’d not felt in over two millennia. Watching this mere mortal sacrifice his life time and time again for nothing more than what he felt was right. It reminded me of the last man I’d truly loved. I even found myself praying that this one would not meet his fate strung up on a cross. 

The fact of the matter was that I had faltered... again. I’d let myself feel something for a “lowly” member of humanity. And I was not even aware that my fall had already begun. Instead, I revelled in it. The sharpness of the world around me whenever he was in my presence. The beauty of everything about him; it was intoxicating. I craved it even during the bloodiest battle with my brethren. My thoughts often on him, I made mistakes time and time again. 

 

It blinded me from seeing betrayal amongst my own kind. It blinded me from seeing that my perception had already been affected. I had assumed that the other angels felt as I did about mankind. I had assumed that they all wanted Lucifer contained. I had assumed that all hierarchy of Angel had humanity’s best interest at heart. I had never been more wrong.

 

And the consequences of my assumptions ultimately led me to my own damnation… my grace condemned by love.


	2. Chapter 2

When Benny first slams him into the tree, Dean assumes that another monster has approached their camp. He goes with it, surreptitiously reaching for his makeshift scythe. It isn’t until he feels the tentative press of the vampire’s teeth to his neck that he realizes nothing else is there. It’s just the two of them and Benny has his fangs inches from Dean’s sweet spot just along his pulse point. “The fuck are you doing, Benny?!” Dean bucks back hard against his chest; trying to dislodge him. It doesn’t work. 

Benny is laughing darkly in his ear. “Relax, brother. I’ll make it quick.”

“The hell you will!” He doesn’t actually have a clue what Benny’s trying to pull, but he ain’t having it. Snarling, Dean twists and tries to get a decent elbow shot to the vampire’s solar plexus. His attempt fails.

“Hold still. Don’t make this anymore difficult than it has to be.” Benny’s breath is cold against his ear. For what it’s worth, Dean does try to allow himself to calm down. The vampire’s voice is a soothing rumble not an angry, inhuman snarl. Perhaps, he’s actually not trying to hurt him, or turn him or whatever the fuck he’s playing at. Maybe if he calms down, Benny will tell him what the hell is going on. “That’s right. That’s my boy.”

“You don’t get to call me that.” Dean snarls; tensing up all over again.

“Alright. Alright I understand.” Burying his face in the hunter’s hair, Benny inhales the mixed scents of various bloods, ectoplasm and dirt. Beneath it all, Dean still smells deliciously human. 

Any calm that Dean had found is complete destroyed when Benny groans against his ear and ruts hard against him. Pinned beneath him against the tree, there’s little the hunter can do but press back and try to twist out from under him. “Get the hell off of me!” Dean demands in a low, angry voice. Even in the situation he’s in right now, he knows better than to yell and bring more monsters running.

“Just calm down. This is for your benefit.”

“Screw you, asshat.”

Benny’s chuckling darkly into his ear again. “Sweetheart, if I wanted this ass for myself. I’d have taken it long ago.” To emphasize his point, he grabs Dean’s wrists and twist them behind him. When that doesn’t cause the hunter to back down, he slams his wrists hard against the bark above his head. The painful tug on Dean’s muscles causes him to lose the knuckle-white grip he’s had on his scythe. It falls to the ground. “Now we can either play nice, or this can be just another nightmare to add to your collection. Your choice, brother.”

Heckles rising, Dean attempts to kick back and dislodge Benny’s legs out from under him. It almost works but then Benny’s slamming Dean hard enough against the tree to momentarily daze him. He tries to blink the disorientation away only to seize up in fear when he finally notices that in all the commotion, Benny has tugged his loose jeans down to his knees and his ass is completely exposed. “Whatever you think you’re doing, Benny. Stop.” He warns with a growl. Screw mutually assured destruction. Screw this fucking alliance. If Benny goes there, Dean’s going to cut his damn head off inch by inch.

“And here I thought we were getting in the habit of saving each other pitiful little lives.” Benny sing songed. 

Dean shifts to look over his shoulder at the monster he’d mistakenly decided to trust. If he’d expected to see anything, it wasn’t Benny fangs slicing through the calloused edges of his own hand. “What are you doing?!” He turns away quickly pressing his face into the rough bark; anything to prevent Benny from forcing him to drink from him.

“Personally, I like it.” Benny says after a moment. Dean still doesn’t have a clue what’s going on or what the hell Benny’s talking about. “It reminds me of home. But out here… don’t matter. You just smell too damn pretty.”

Whatever fight Dean had decided to hold back, resurfaces when he feels Benny’s fingers sliding over and stroking past his ass to press against his balls. Laughing breathlessly, Benny cooes in his ear. “Just take, Dean. Call it camouflage. My stink all over you, it’ll take them days to catch scent of your sweet human essence.” He ends his statement with a silky hiss.

Benny’s words finally wash over him and he finally settles. He’s still desperately clenching his ass trying to prevent any oncoming intrusion, but he wants to know exactly what the vampire means by what he’s just said. “The fuck does that mean?”

“Means, you let me mount your cherry little ass… and best guess you’re off the radar for a solid 60-70 hours. They could be looking right at your shiny human self and see nothing but a bloodsucker.” 

The press, tug, and pull of Benny’s hands spreading blood and shit knows what else all over his junk is getting more forceful. “Wait!” Dean shrugs him off of his back but doesn’t move to shove him any further off. “You know, asshat, you coulda just asked… maybe explained before going all rapey on me.”

“Righteous hunter like yourself, you’d never.” Benny teases.

“Yeah? Shows what you know. Do it. Just don’t…” He can’t believe he’s saying this. “... hurt me too much. I still need to be able to fight.”

Benny rubs his bleeding palm over the globes of the hunter’s ass with a hiss. “That’s the plan. Can’t have your delicious concoction of..” He sniffs loudly. “O pos… contaminating my hard work.” He slides a finger in past the all the blood edging closer to the spasming pucker of Dean’s asshole. “We gotta move this along though, brother. It’s safe now but it won’t stay that way for long.”

“Just get it over with, Benny.” He bites back.

“With pleasure.”

Grunting at Benny’s manhandling, which is just a bit more rough trade than Dean’s into, he bears down; preparing for the intrusion and willing his body to react naturally. It’s easier now that he knows and understands the vampires intent. He’s done this before. He’s not exactly the cherry piece the vamp thinks he is. 

However, they’re gonna have words about this later, but he gets it. He does. And, what’s another line crossed in purgatory. He’d already plowed through so many of them since him and Castiel arrived. He had to stay focused. Find the angel, get the three of them the hell out of here. 

Only, Benny doesn’t slide in how Dean’s expecting. His actions just slightly more gentle than before, the vampire slots his dick between the hunter’s thighs. Benny thrusts hard against him. The press of his slick, hot shaft nudging and pressing past his balls has Dean biting back the moan building in the back of his throat. It’s been so long since he’s been with another man, before any of his and Cas’ forays at least. The rush of lust as Benny starts to hump him isn’t all that much of a surprise. The fact that it seems he can indeed get it up for a vamp, now that’s a bombshell. 

“Don’t you go shooting off just yet. I’ve got plans for that.” Benny purrs into his ear before licking a wide stripe along his neck. “Need to keep these things… clean.”

Fisting Dean’s hair in his hand, Benny holds him in place and rears back to begin pounding against his hips in earnest. It’s just good enough that it drags the previously bitten off moan out of the hunter with a desperate shout. “Fuck!” 

Benny is grunting and moaning behind him; hips faltering when the hunter arches back into the onslaught. Dean keens when instead of sliding back between his thighs and against his ball… Benny’s cock slides up between his cheeks; catching along the rim of his hole. Jesus fuck, he wants that. He wants that so fucking bad. “Benny!”

He doesn’t get it, though. Instead, Benny kicks his feet apart and dips down low enough to rut harder against his gooch. Dean moans and pants. He’s already strung out on the rush of lust and adrenaline. His thought are a litany of: harder, faster... more, more, more! 

Much to his dismay, it’s not more than a few minutes later when the vampire’s sounds cease and his cock pulses against the sensitive folds of Dean’s nuts. Benny pulls back with a loud hiss; releasing his grip in Dean’s hair. He twists around to face him just in time to see Benny’s fangs retract back up into his gums. Gripping his own still hard cock, Dean smirks at him. “About those plans?”

“And here I thought you were a tad slow on the uptake, brother.” Benny leers before sliding down to his knees in front of the hunter. 

Trembling as Benny takes him in, Dean’s gasping desperately for breath. The suction doesn’t relent not even for a second. And it occurs to him, just as he’s emptying his load into the vampires waiting mouth that… that actually makes sense considering the whole dead and not breathing thing. 

He’s less than pleased when Benny starts pawing him with his still bleeding hand. He tries to pull away only to be shushed. “Camouflage.” Benny reminds him with a sneer.

“Yeah, right.” Dean shoves off the tree with a grunt and drags his pants back up. “... you do that again without asking first. I’ll cut it off.” He gives the vampire’s now flaccid cock a glare then meets his gaze with a challenge in his eyes. 

“Fair’s fair.” Benny reaches out and pats Dean’s back as they head north through the forest; the incident already behind them.

***

It shouldn’t come as such a shock that the monsters do actually end up giving them some space over the next couple days, but it does. Dean had honestly considered the option that maybe Benny had just been horny and he’d been the closest semi-willing body. Apparently, there was merit to his actions. Who knew?!

The sniffing thing, though. That was getting weird. They’d just taken down a wraith hybrid together when Dean found himself slammed up against yet another fucking tree. “Benny…” He warns with a hiss. The vampire had leaned into his face and inhaled sharply, nodded, and shifted to do the same along Dean’s neck. Benny’s grip doesn’t relent as he nuzzles his face into the hunter’s armpit, down his stomach and against his jean-clad dick. “The fuck, man?!” Dean’s breath is labored, but he doesn’t try to fight Benny off. He allows his fucked up scenting or whatever and tries to keep his eyes open and scanning their surroundings for an attack. It ends almost as abruptly as it had began. Dean swallows down the urge to call Benny on being a cocktease as the vampire stands up and walks away. 

They were approaching the third day since then incident when a mutt of a monster with burnt out eyes falls into their path. Dean takes to him with renewed vigor. He’s not sure if it’s the fact that he’s worried sick that they still haven’t found Cas or if he’s on edge from what had happened with Benny. After he’s coerced the location of his angel out of the thing, Dean shoves his scythe through its head with a snarl. 

“Damn, you look good like that.” Benny intones behind him.

Right, after days of nothing but sniffing and nuzzling him… now, Benny’s got a hard-on for him? Fucking figures. Wait. Sixty to seventy hours. Was Benny that good at guessing how much time had passed even after being in purgatory so long? Or, Dean wonders, is he just starting to smell more and more human? Turning to face the vamp, Dean twirls his scythe around like a baton. “You want something, Benny boy?” He flirts. Might as well make it fun if survival here made it a necessity. Adrenaline and hope is pumping fiercely through Dean’s veins as Benny approaches him. Nodding towards the darkness encompassing the trees, he adds. “We in the clear for a bit?”

Benny takes in a large whiff of the night air. “Nothing close enough for me to scent besides that one…” He glances at Dean’s most recent kill with a proud smile. “Should probably make this pretty quick though.”

The vampire’s grip is unrelenting as he cups the back of Dean’s neck and shoves him to his knees. “Eyes open, mouth closed.” He offers as simple instruction before withdrawing his own cock from his trousers. 

Dean doesn’t have to be told twice. Pressing his lips tightly together, he lets his attention focus on the rapid movement of Benny’s hand sliding up and down his dick. Any other guy, Dean would probably be offering to even out the playing field and pay that shit back with his mouth… but considering Benny’s instructions, it’s safe enough to assume that blood isn’t the only bodily fluid that can trigger a transformation if consumed. 

So, he watches and waits with baited breath for the splash of Benny’s cum as it lands on his face, neck and chest. He’s sporting maybe a half woody by the end of it. It’s easy enough to reject Benny’s offer to return the favor; great minds think alike. Shaking his head, Dean drags his blood caked finger through the mess on his face. He rubs it into his skin quickly and efficiently. Only when he’s done, does he turn his head and give Benny’s hand on his shoulder, still holding him down, the stink eye. “Let’s go.”

“Lead the way.” Benny says with a smile and trudges along behind Dean making sure they aren’t followed.


	3. Chapter 3

As it turns out, the mutt’s information isn’t wrong. They find Castiel by the stream washing blood and God knows what else off of his face and hands. The excitement and relief that surges through Dean is the only reason he’s dumb enough to yell as they approach. “Cas!”

Slowly standing, Castiel turns to face him and Benny. “Dean.” He actually sounds shocked to see him. Not to mention, he looks seconds away from bolting.

“Cas.” Dean says with a smile and pulls Castiel into a warm hug hoping to soothe away the tension. He’d been so worried that something terrible had happened to him. Words couldn’t express just how good it felt to see him again. “Damn, it's good to see you. Nice peach fuzz.”

Cocking his head, Castiel responds slowly. “Thank you.” 

Purgatory hasn’t done the angel any favors when it came to the social niceties, Dean observes. Gesturing towards his partner, Dean quickly adds. “You should meet somebody. This is Benny. Benny, this is Cas.”

“Hola.” Benny replies with a frown.

Castiel drags his eyes up and down the vampire. He looks between the creature and Dean. There’s a matching scowl forming along his brow. “How did you find me?”

“The bloody way.” Dean looks Cas over again, wondering if he’d missed noticing any injuries; something that would explain his pissy behavior. Sure, Cas wasn’t known his smooth talking but he usually wasn’t out and out rude unless he was drunk. Then again, he had been a few miles this side of crazy when they’d landed themselves in purgatory. Was he even playing with a full deck? “You feeling okay?”

“You mean am I still…?” Castiel makes a circling motion just above his ear. He squints at Dean but doesn’t respond anything further. 

Way to cut the the chase, man. “Yeah, if you want to be on the nose about it, sure.” 

“No. I'm perfectly sane.” His answer is succinct. And for a second, Dean misses the rambling of off-his-rocker-Cas. “But, then, 94% of psychotics think they're perfectly sane, so I guess we'd have to ask ourselves, what is sane?"

“That's a good question.” Dean chuckles. The smile that has spread across his face feels alien. Sure, Benny had a biting sense of humor but he wasn’t Cas. 

The stilted cheerfulness of the situation is drained, by a vampire no less, when Benny pipes up. “Why'd you bail on Dean?” He sounds more pissed that Dean’s ever heard him sound. Typically, he was pretty chill for a bloodsucker. 

“Dude.” He frowns at him; silently attempting to get him to shut the hell up. It works about as well as any other time Dean’s tried to tell him what to do. Which is to say, it doesn’t.

“The way I hear it, you two hit monster land, and hot wings here took off. I figure he owes you some backstory.” He’s glaring daggers at Castiel and squaring his shoulders to look more menacing. It does the trick because the angel takes a few steps back.

Oh, come on. They could do cock-a-doodle posturing shit later. Dean shakes his head and launches into the explanation he’s given Benny time and time again; a little less than pleased that he has to repeat himself. “Look, we were surrounded, okay? Some freak jumped Cas. Obviously, he kicked its ass, right?”

“No.” Castiel’s calm, cool voice cuts through the air.

What? “What?!” Dean can’t help but start to get riled up at that. Which Cas exactly were they dealing with here? Purgatory didn’t make him go all megalomaniac again, did it? He was gonna be so pissed if Cas jumped on that high horse again.

“I ran away.” 

Castiel had been adamant before their encounter with Dick Roman that he didn’t like confrontation. Shit, maybe he was still kookoo for cocoa puffs. “You ran away?” The hell?

“I had to.” He’s frowning at Dean now as if the hunter is missing something that he clearly should understand.

Dean really, really doesn’t understand. “That's your excuse for leaving me with those gorilla-wolves?” The fuck was that noise?!

“Dean…” Castiel begins to protest.

“You bailed out and, what, went camping? I prayed to you, Cas, every night.” He loathes to betray any weakness in front of Benny. Shit, it’s not like he can hold it back right now. What the hell?! He’s so unbelievably pissed. Pissed enough to cry or kill something. It’s not like the vamp hasn’t already figured out he’s got a soft spot a mile wide for Cas, but damn it… this was embarrassing.

“I know.” Castiel bows his head and looks away; shame coloring his features.

“You knew and you didn't…” Dean takes an angry step towards Cas. The angel is apparently smart enough to drift a fews steps back as well at this. He acts scared of him, Dean thinks. Good. “What the hell's wrong with you?”

“I am an angel in a land of abominations.” His eyes land on Benny with accusation burning bright in them. “There have been things hunting me from the moment we arrived.”

“Join the club!” Dean shouts. Narcissistic prick. Hadn’t Cas learnt anything? They’re supposed to be in this together… all for one and all that happy ass, three musketeer shit.

“These are not just monsters, Dean. They're Leviathan. I have a price on my head, and I've been trying to stay one step ahead of them, to…” Castiel tears his gaze away from Benny and focuses it on Dean. “To keep them away from you. That's why I ran.” He pauses as his features shift. His tone pleading, Castiel almost sounds like he’s begging. “Just leave me, please.”

The explanation hits Dean like a punch to the gut. Oh. Oh, damn. He hadn’t even thought about that. Son of a bitch, it should’ve been the first thing he considered. It was just so fucking... Cas-like; ready to throw himself off of a cliff for the supposed greater good. Well, at least when he was in his right mind.

Behind them, Benny is already heading back towards the forest. “Sounds like a plan. Let's roll.” He hollers back at Dean; clearly he’s not as understanding about the angel’s explanation.

“Hold on, hold on.” Dean spreads his arms and points at both of them. “Cas, we're getting out of here. We're going home.” He’ll beg if he has to. He really will.

But Castiel is already objecting before he can start. “Dean, I can't.”

Dean doesn’t want to hear it. Turning to Benny’s retreating back, he insists. “You can. Benny, tell him.”

With a roll of his eyes, Benny stops walking and turns to face them. “Purgatory has an escape hatch, but I got no idea if it's angel-friendly.” Everything about the vampire’s stance communicates his complete disregard for Castiel’s presence. 

“We'll figure it out. Cas, buddy, I need you.” Dean’s eyes are wet. Blinking them clear, he swallows the lump in his throat. Shit, now he actually is crying. Fuck, he hates when this happens to him. 

“I can see that.” No longer hiding behind his previously blank expressions, Castiel zeros his gaze in first on Benny and then on Dean. “I can… smell... that, Dean. Clearly, I am not needed any longer.” There’s not exactly anger in his voice, but there’s not exactly approval either.

Dean allows himself to gape for a moment before shrugging it off. He doesn’t have a clue what Cas is on about. There hasn’t been a day since they met face to face that Dean hasn’t needed his angel, his Cas. Not a single God damn day. “Listen. If the Leviathan want to take a shot at us, let ‘em. We ganked those bitches once before. We can do it again.”

“It's too dangerous.” Castiel’s looking at Benny again as he responds; like he’s trying to garner support. 

Like if the two of them can’t succeed in convincing Dean to leave Cas behind, Cas will all but jump at siding with… a perceived enemy… just to supposedly save him? They were so over arguing about this. Dean clears his throat and stares Cas down. “Let me bottom-line it for you. I'm not leaving here without you. Understand?”

“I understand.” Castiel assents sadly; his attention waning and returning to the stream.

***

It’s creeping up on the fourth day past the last time Benny and Dean had been gotten all up close and personal. The near week of reprieve from the constant attacks had been glorious. But now, with Castiel at their sides. It seemed the monsters were coming in droves. Often times, they made it maybe a mile before being accosted. And that was if they were lucky. 

They’re in a clearing about a quarter mile from the nearest water source when they’re jumped for at least the third time since sunrise. On the plus side, it’s taking them less and less time to cut their enemies down; even if the attacks are suddenly more plentiful. On the not-so plus side, they’re exhausted.

Dean is standing back up after decapitating a particularly toothy creature while Benny is wiping his blade clean on his kill’s clothing when Castiel dodges a wicked jab to his face. He reaches out and places a hand on the monster head and smites him with a surge of bright, white light; burning the beast from the inside out. Dean’s seen it a million times before, but it doesn’t get any less impressive.

“Well, I got to admit, Dean. He's got his strong points, but holy hell if he ain't a magnet.” Benny observes as Castiel follows the corpse’s fall to the ground with his eyes.

Snorting out a laugh, Dean shakes his head. “Before we found Cas, you said it was my humanity that was drawing too much attention.” Which is it, Benny-boy? Me or the angel? Which one of us is really to blame for all walks of purgatory riding their ass hard and fast?

“Yeah, that too.” Benny flashes him a smile. It’s a shadow of the flirting they’d just started to build up to before they’d found Cas. The vamp hadn’t approached Dean for another bout of camouflaging since they had. Dean realizes that as much as it had been about mutual attraction, it had been about protection more. Protection that was a moot point now with their angel friend along for the ride. 

Castiel steps over his kill and approaches them. “Well, I think we're clear for the moment.” Wiping his hand on his trenchcoat, he hums thoughtfully. “It does present a curious curl in the metaphysics, doesn't it?” Castiel looks skyward. “If you murder a monster in monster heaven, where does it go?” He directs his question at Dean; appearing very curious about the answer. 

He never gets his answer because Benny is all too quick to jump into the fray. “And this is the crazy aunt I want to take on the road?” The vampire asks from the sidelines with a chuckle

“I am not your aunt.” Castiel replies back calmly as if he’s already become accustom to explaining things to the vampire that even a child should know.

Full on laughing, Benny only eggs him on anyway. “What? Really?”

“I have no possible relationship to your sibling offspring.” Castiel’s tone is serious and he’s quite insistent on clarifying the matter. He doesn’t realize that his own naivete makes him appear as childlike as he perceives the vampire to be.

Licking his lips and looking down at Castiel’s smaller stature, Benny replies with a smirk. “Now, you're kidding me.”

“Oh, you two are killing me!” Dean isn’t sure how much longer he can tolerate Benny’s deliberate baiting and Cas’ social ineptitude. Normally, Benny wasn’t such a dick. And normally, Cas… Well, he has to admit that he will always give Cas an out because… Cas was just being Cas.

“I have to agree with the vampire, Dean.” Jesus, could Cas any more petulant? “The risk of crossing purgatory with a Seraph… it's... less than strategic, and certainly when we have no reason to believe that I can pass through the door that you're headed for.”

Seraph? Cas was a Seraph? Really? He was going to have to look that one up when they made their way topside. Speaking of topside, since when was the discussion heading down this path… again? Clenching his jaw, Dean decides to wait out Benny’s monologue and another of Cas’ attempts before bothering to respond.. 

Benny isn’t even looking at Cas as he starts in on the same old shit he’s been throwing at Dean for days. “You see, you're an intact, living human being stuck in purgatory's craw. This dimension wants to spit you out, which is exactly what's gonna power our escape pod. Now, I'm pretty sure I can squeeze through, too, because, after all, you take away the fangs and the fun, I was born human, too. But…”

“I don't think it would work for me.” Castiel admits finishing off the vampire’s thoughts.

Benny turns to Dean now and throws his party line at him… again. “You hear what he's telling you, Dean? Your buddy is saying…”

That’s it. He likes Benny. He really does. But he is so beyond over this back and forth about taking Cas with them. Dean walks up and presses into Benny’s space. “Listen to me, you undead blood junkie, I'm the one with the mojo. I'm the one with the plan.” He doesn’t wait for the vampire’s reaction. Instead, he turns to face Cas. “And Cas... we're gonna shove your ass back through the eye of that needle if it kills all three of us.”

“Obviously, I'm less than comfortable with that.” Benny pipes up with the last word before Dean storms off into the forest with the two of them hot on his trail. 

***

When they aren’t bickering about Dean’s insistence on taking Castiel with them, they fall into an easy banter. Sometimes it’s complete nonsense other times it holds a more arduous tone. Unfortunately for all involved, today ends up one of the more serious days.

“What the hell do you know about the value of life? You're a vampire.” Dean’s shaking his head at the audacity of a monster claiming to value life in any sense of the word. What a load of crap! He saw Benny for exactly what he was… an opportunist. Hell, it only went to figure seeing as how Dean was pretty much the human equivalent. It takes one to know one. That’s what they said, after all. 

“Yep. And I think we both know which of our kinds kills more humans.” Benny shoots back with bark of a laugh trying to bring a little levity to their conversation; as is his way. It’s rhetoric and Dean knows it. He offers the vampire a smile as a peace offering. 

It’s a surprise to them both when Castiel decides to interject with his own opinion on the matter. “Well, statistically speaking, that'd be your…” His eyes are burning a hole in the back of Dean’s head.

“Yes, thank you, Cas.” He interrupts and tries to laugh it off; a feat that would be easier to accomplish if the statement wasn’t at least 99% true. It’s an uncomfortable thought. One that had haunted him since his and Sam’s run in with Gordon back in Red Lodge so many years ago.

“I get it. You're worried what I might do if we make it topside. Worried I'll start eating your little piggies.” Benny steers the conversation back on track and the focus back onto himself. “I already told you, man. By the time I got iced, I was strictly on blood transfusions, donated blood. Not donated to me, I'll give you that, but I paid good black-market scratch for it.”

“So, what is that? Like the vampire Zone diet?” Dean aims for it to come off as mocking, but his obvious curiosity shines through. He’s always had a hard time masking it when it came to stuff that piqued his interest.

“Look, all I'm saying is I started seeing something in humanity, okay? Something that shouldn't be taken. I drink blood. I don't drink people.” Benny spares a glance over his shoulder at the angel who also surprisingly fails to hide the look of awe and surprise that passes over his face. 

“And why the hell should I believe you?” Dean spits back; oblivious to the subtle interaction happening right under his nose.

“What does it matter what you believe? You got your head so far up your ass, Dean, you don't even realize we're already done for.” Benny shoots back angrily. He’d been trying to play nice but the hunter’s ragging was wearing him a might thin. “The angel knows it.” Benny offers a jerky nod in Castiel’s direction. The angel doesn’t respond. “We are never gonna make it with him next to us glowing like a beacon.”

Not fucking again. Dean lets the anger build up to a quick boil inside of him. “Do I need to remind you of our deal? Of what you committed to?” He hisses fiercely.

“Yeah, well. He is gonna get us killed.” Benny growls back; his voice rising.

Breaking his silence, Castiel interrupts them. “We may get to test that theory.”

That ends the argument and quick. “More monsters?” Dean asks as he readies his scythe.

“Leviathan.” Castiel confirms darkly. 

Dean glances around quickly. If it’s actually the Leviathan truly catching up with them, they are so fucked. “Why don't you blip out of here?” He suggests. Sure, he chances Cas pulling a runner and them having to track him down all over again. But if it’ll save their bacon. All of their bacon, it’s a chance he’s willing to take.

“They're too close. I can't.” He turns to Dean and Benny. “Run!”

None of them need to be told twice. They bolted as soon as the word has left Castiel’s mouth. Darting through the forest they try but fail to avoid a spiralling clouds of thick, black smoke raining down. They’re forced to come to a full stop as they’re surrounded by it. The smoke clears and the transforms first to goo and then into a Leviathan. 

“Oh, great.” Dean sighs; his reaction understated. After which, one of the Leviathan targets him and attacks; its wide jaw of teeth bared in a primal scream as it prepares to consume him. 

Castiel turns to head in the opposite direction with the intent of drawing them away from the Dean. His attempt, however, is halted when another ball of black smoke hits the ground directly in front of him. This Leviathan transforms rapidly before his eyes and attacks just as quickly. 

Meanwhile, Dean is swinging his scythe at the first Leviathan trying to make his way towards the angel who is being thrown to the ground by the other Leviathan. The hunter’s target falls to the ground but doesn’t remain. It is moves quickly to get back up. Dean sees his chance. The Leviathan bearing down on him shifts its attention away from him and onto the angel. Dean lunges and hacks at its neck; successfully decapitating the damn thing. 

When he’s done, he turns to defend Cas. He watches in horror as the second Leviathan’s mouth transforms; ready to consume him. And then suddenly, Benny is behind the monster. He cuts off its head with a loud grunt. Castiel is staring up at the vampire from the ground with wide eyes; his expression only growing more shocked when Benny leans forward and offers the angel a hand to help pull him up.


	4. Chapter 4

It’s strange seeing Cas sleep, Dean thinks as him and Benny clean up the remains of that night’s meal. Back home, the angel had never needed sleep. Hell, there’d been times that Dean had been near comatose on his feet when Cas had pushed him to keep going.

They had just suffocated the fire and were discussing who was taking the first watch for the night when the vamp derails the topic completely. “I think I get it. You and him.”

“Christ. Not you too.” Dean shifts to lean back against a nearby tree trunk. He knew exactly where this line of conversation was going to lead. He’d heard it from every two-bit fanged menace, demons, his own brother… even Crowley. 

Benny’s going to tell him all about how Cas is in love with him and that Dean should accept his sexuality and how they should run off and raise a litter of Nephilim babies together. Which was all well and good except for the fact that neither of them could bear children exactly… and most importantly… he’d heard the spiel before.

Benny snorts out a laugh unaware of exactly why Dean’s frustration seemed to flare up even worse at his words. “We all have our masters, brother. Some blood. Some not.”

Talk about coming out of the left field. Okay, so maybe he hadn’t heard this shit before. “What?” 

“Castiel.” 

The name rolls off of the vampire’s tongue like Dean remembers satin feeling under his fingertips. It’s more than a little unnerving to realize how closely his mind associates the two sensations. He turns away from Benny. Dean knows it’s a chicken shit move to hide his face like that, doesn’t mean he’s not going to jump on it. “You think he’s my master?” He’s shaking his head as he speaks. Hell, he’d laugh. That is, if it was a laughing matter. It isn’t. For as long as he’s been able to understand shit like that… Dean has known that no man, woman, or creature will ever lord over him like that. 

“...maybe you just don’t realize it yet.” Benny steps across the campfire and settles against the tree next to Dean. “You’d die for him, right?” He doesn’t wait for the hunter to respond before he continues. “He saved you. From hell, I hear. Rebelled against God himself... at your word.” Picking up a branch, Benny pokes at the dying embers of the fire. “And even when everything else in you and everyone else around you was telling you different… you used to have total faith in him, am I right?”

Son of a bitch knew he was right. Dean had given him a low down on his and Cas’ history throughout the weeks they’d been tracking him. He’s not going to answer Benny’s questions. Not now. The silence hangs heavy in the air between them. Dean doesn’t respond. He can’t. Every single word of it is true. Which only leads to Benny continuing his explanation. “Hell, you dragged my ass all over purgatory looking for him. There’s a bond there. A familiar one.”

That catches his attention. Benny’s tone dropping into a softer octave when he bring up bonds; there is definitely a story behind that. “How do you mean? Familiar?” Dean’s voice is a rough whisper when he finally speaks.

“I mean… I know how it feels to love another like that.” The crackling of the fire, the low hum of Cas’ snoring, and a slow steady breeze are the only sounds for miles as the Benny speaks. “I did. A very long time ago.” 

It’s a revealing confession for a vampire, Dean has to admit. Though he can hardly find comparison between a master bloodsucker and his progeny… and him and Cas. “Don’t make him my master.” He argues.

“Coulda fooled me.” Benny reaches over and slides his hand up Dean’s thigh; his nostrils flaring at the sudden rush of endorphins in the human. 

Jerking away from the touch, Dean scowls at him. “Don’t.”

“Ever since we found him, you’ve been less than keen to… well…. Our previous endeavors... Might do us both some good to let off a little steam.” When Dean inches away from him, Benny chuckles. “Like I said, coulda fooled me.”

Dean is suddenly stone, cold serious. “It ain’t like that.” Now, he’s gone and offended him? 

“Ain’t like what, brother?”

“I woulda never made it here without you, man.” He presses his leg against Benny’s as if the act alone is evidence. “I’m not slighting you by not hooking up with you… it’s just.”

“Just?” There’s a smile playing on Benny’s lips as he watches the shadows as they play on the hunter’s face; a smile that reveals the fact that he already knows what Dean’s going to say.

“Me and Cas, we…” Dean’s voice fades away into the night. 

“I know.” Benny shifts into a better position against the tree. “That day by the river, I knew. Could smell it coming off him in waves.”

Frowning at the ground, Dean feels strange; nervous even. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He gets the implication, he does. It’s just… never in a million had he thought that there was any truth in his little fantasies. 

“Jealousy.” Benny replies bluntly. “I didn’t know the winged bastard had it in him.”

Dean lets his attention wander back to Cas’ sleeping form. Was that what some of this stay behind bullshit was about? Jealousy? Pure unadulterated jealousy? He knew some of Cas’ protests were steeped in guilt. He recognized that when he saw it. But had Cas’ attitude towards Benny all stemmed from the fact that he could smell the vampire’s blood and cum on Dean? Frowning, he glances over at Benny. He neither denies nor confirms anything. Not exactly. “Yeah, well…” Dean smiles briefly. “He’s full of surprises.”

“As are you, brother, as are you.”

Grunting, Dean doesn’t bother to respond to that. “I’ll take watch. Go on, rest up.” He offers after a beat. He watches Benny shift and settle onto the ground a few feet from Cas. Watching the two of them sleep, after the conversation he’d just had, was going to be torture.

***

Castiel wakes before Dean’s watch ends. He doesn’t speak; not at first. Instead, he watches Benny sleep with a curious expression on his face. “He’s broken too, isn’t he?” He finally says after the tension of the silence has raised enough to make Dean’s skin start to itch.

It gets Dean’s attention. “Broken?”

“Like me” Castiel offers as a quiet explanation.

“Cas, we’ve been over this before.” Dean feels a deep pang of sorrow and regret deep in his gut. “You ain’t broken.”

“Oh, Dean. I was.” He tilts his head as if to take in a new perspective of the vampire. “I was.” Rubbing his hands together for warmth, Dean brings them to his mouth and blows into them. He refuses to be baited into this conversation by Cas again. He’d rather sit and stew in silence. “As abominations go, he possesses a beautiful heart.” The angel adds after a few moment pass.

Was that fucking poetry? Seriously? Cas couldn’t stand Benny. The hell? Some days he seriously worried that Cas was relapsing into his previous psychosis. Dean sighs and looks up at him. “You aren’t gonna start in on the bees again, are you?”

Frowning, Castiel shakes his head. “I’m entirely lucid, Dean. He has mentioned it before; how he has seen something in humanity that shouldn’t be taken.”

“Yeah?” Okay, so Cas has his attention now. It sounds like it something that he’s actually thought about for a bit. That’s enough to give Dean pause. He remembers Benny saying something like that more than once during previous conversations. He never quite knew whether or not to take it seriously. Apparently, Cas takes it very seriously.

“Dean, this vampire… he has a heart. He possess the capacity to love.” 

So? “So?” 

“So, it is highly unusual. A mutation perhaps.” He tilts his head again as Benny shifts in his sleep. “He’s closer to human than I am.”

The causes Dean’s throat to constrict in a way that’s not unlike being suffocated. “Don’t you say that, Cas.”

“I speak the truth, Dean.” Castiel replies gently. He clearly hadn’t meant to offend the hunter with his words. It was simply how he felt.

“Your version of…” If it wouldn’t draw the attention of a predator, Dean would seriously throw something at Castiel’s head. Then again maybe not. The defeated posture of the angel is enough to appeal to his chivalry. “C’mere.” He motions for Castiel to come closer. Tucking him under his arm, Dean searches the sky for signs of sunrise. “We should rest. Today’s going to be a long stretch according to Benny.”

“Yes, Dean.”

***

Benny is watching them with curious eyes. Dean’s about ready to take one of the weapons they’d been working on and slap the vampire upside the head with it. Him and Cas have a history of working together. There ain’t nothing unusual about the easy flow between them. There’s nothing in it that deserve the smug little faces that Benny is throwing their way. Not to mention, Cas is an awesome and attentive assistant. Most times, he seems to instinctually know what to do to; it makes menial jobs get done that much faster. So, Benny can just go fuck himself. That and he can keep his damn eyes off Cas.

It’s the angel’s presence that hold him back, quite honestly. Rather than lashing out at Benny in annoyance, Dean opts to toss him a couple of the handcrafted stakes that him and Cas have been working on. “Heads up!”

“Nice work, boys.” Benny purrs at the two of them; winking at Castiel when the angel’s attention had ventures up towards him.

Okay, that was the last straw. Dean shoves himself up off of the ground and stalks over to the vampire. “Don’t.”

“Don’t?”

“That’s right. Don’t.”

“Don’t what, Dean?”

“Don’t… not to him.”

Benny raises an eyebrow. There’s obvious confusion on his face; like he doesn’t quite understand what’s being said to him. He’s not about to argue the matter. “Okay, okay. Relax, hombre.” His eyes dart between Dean and Castiel as the hunter shuffles back to kneel at the angel’s side and help finish up the handful of stakes they had left.

After that, he’s quick to notice little things he’d overlooked before. The way Castiel always falls behind Dean when they’re walking anywhere but jumps to defend him at the first sign of trouble. He notices how the angel’s attention rarely strays from the hunter except when his full attention is required for a fight. 

Benny had never been so surprised to be wrong in his entire life.

***

They’re neck deep in the corpses of almost a dozen monsters when Benny approaches Dean. “I’ve been thinking.” He leans down and searches the body for useable weapons, rations, or equipment. Castiel is doing the same a few yards away.

“Yeah?” When the vampire doesn’t immediately respond, Dean repeats himself. “Yeah?!”

“... you won’t like it.”

“If this is about leaving him behind…” Dean starts to let himself get pissed off all over again. He’d truth believed they were finally over this shit.

“...think he could be... camouflaged?” Benny asks in a hushed tone; his eyes never leaving Castiel’s frame.

Dean sees red. He has Benny on the ground with his neck beneath his scythe before the vampire can even move to defend himself. “You ever say something like that to me again. So help me, I’ll slit your fucking throat.” Dean presses the blade that much harder against Benny’s throat.

Having noticed the commotion, Castiel approaches them with worry written all over his features. “What is going on?” He inquires.

“Nothing!” Dean snarls; daring Benny to say something, anything, to give him an excuse to decapitate him. “Just straightening out a few details of our… agreement.”

“Dean.” There’s concern and maybe even a little judgement in the angel’s tone. It doesn’t help things.

“I’ve got this handled, Cas. Just finish checking the bodies.” Dean shifts up and off of Benny sparing Cas a momentary glance. The vampire remains on the ground until the angel nods and shuffles back to finish searching the remains.

Benny’s eyes are sharp and considering as he watches Dean. “I had it all wrong, brother.” He finally says. Hands raised in surrender, he climbs up off the ground. Cutting his eyes at the hunter, Benny nods. “See? I just needed a clearer picture. He’s off limits. I got it.” He wipes his hands off on his pants; the dirt and blood leaving dark streaks across the material. “I’ll just…” Benny motions towards the last handful of bodies left to search. “...help Cas finish up.”

“You do that.” Dean growls at him. 

***

“Why do you do this?” Castiel directs his question at Benny. They’re back around a campfire; a small rodent is roasting on a spit and another is being slowly sucked dry by the vampire.

“What... this?” Benny tosses the now drained animal towards Dean to be hung over the fire.

“No, I understand why you feed. The curse, the compulsion.” He nods at Dean who has just finished tying the rodent onto a stick and is placing it next to the one already cooking. “That.”

“What?” Benny asks again, plainly not understanding what Castiel was meaning. 

“Feed him… help us.”

Benny snorts at him; finally comprehending the question. “In case you weren’t paying attention on the first day of class, he’s the ticket outta this station.”

“It’s more than that.” Castiel challenges serenely. 

“Oh?” Benny asks with a smirk.

“Yes. You don’t have to… be so careful when you feed. You are, though, so you can share the food with Dean.” Castiel bows his head and stares into the fire. “On many occasions, you’ve put yourself in danger to protect him… and myself. Why?”

Dean had been about to jump in and change the subject. But Cas’ words stop him. He’s wondered the same thing many times. But he wasn’t the type of guy to try and dig up the motives of others and hold them under a microscope. After all, Benny’s words rang true and Dean knew it. He was their ticket out of purgatory. Evidently, Cas is exactly the type of guy to question others motives. Glancing between the vampire and angel, Dean busies himself with his dinner and tries to simply listen; curious at where exactly the conversation will lead them.

“Guess I’m just a nice guy.” Benny leers at Castiel; the flames casting an eerie shadow over his features.

The frown on Castiel’s face deepens at his response. He doesn’t press the issue though. Dean, on the other hand, has turned to watch him. “You hungry, Cas?” The angel shakes his head. “You sure? You don’t normally need sleep but this place seems to tire you out so...”

“I do not require sustenance, Dean. Thank you.” He offers the hunter a polite smile as he bows his head and turns his attention to the fire.

Benny’s chuckling and shaking his head. “You sure are an eccentric sort for an angel.”

“You’ve met many angels?” Castiel’s features darken as he raises his head. The vampire’s words are so very close to that of his fallen brethren. Too close.

“Just you, pretty b… Castiel.” Benny stops himself mid sentence; his eyes darting towards Dean as he makes a decision to change his choice of words.

The angel’s eyes are bearing down on Benny hard enough that he honestly wouldn’t be all that surprised if he suddenly burst into flames. Castiel’s words are more harsh than his gaze when he speaks. “Then how are you qualified to pass judgement on exactly what -sort- of angel I am?”

“Whoa.” Dean’s looking at Castiel with shock written all over his face. “Something eating you, Cas?”

Castiel narrows his eyes into a glare in Benny’s direction before he shakes his head. “I’m fine.”

“Clearly.” Dean leans forward and rotates the spits. “Seriously, what’s bothering you?”

“All I want is a clear answer from this, this…” Pressing his lips shut, Castiel looks away from the hunter and the vampire both to glower into the darkness. 

It reminds Dean of various times back home when he’d mistakenly hurt the angel’s feelings. Sammy wasn’t here to fix things. That only left him. Heaven for-fucking-bid. “Benny, just talk to him normal. Please?”

Grumbling, Benny sighs at Dean. There’s affection and respect in his eyes when he looks at the hunter. And it’s out of that respect only that he turns to the angel and begins to speak plainly. “Fine. Cas, can I call you that?” He raises an eyebrow at Dean. “Can I call him that?” Castiel doesn’t respond but Dean offers a quick nod. “You want to know why I’m so keen on helping the two of you?”

“Yes.”

“Well… Dean? That’s easy. He’s human, for starters. I’ve made it pretty clear how I feel about that. There’s also the fact that if shit goes down, if I’ve got his back… he’s got mine. It don’t matter to me if he’s hunted my kind most of his life. Not to me. Not to him…. not here.” He offers Dean a respectful nod before he continues. “You? It’s real simple…. because of him.”

The angel’s attention slides slowly from Benny over to Dean and then back. “I see. Thank you.” He bows his head again. It’s almost as if he’s become so lost in his thoughts and memories that the continued presence needed for a conversation overwhelms him. 

Castiel might be bowing his head; Dean, however, is scowling in Benny’s direction. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say about this to him?” He retrieves the first rodent from the fire and begins preparing the seared flesh enough to stomach eating it. “Benny, sometimes you are a pain in my ass.”

“He hurt you?!” Castiel’s waning attention is suddenly sharp. He’s taking inventory of Dean with intent.

“What?” Dean asks as he chews on a chunk of meat. Cas has completely lost him. His anger at Benny is fading as the confusion takes hold. First, Cas is all distant and monosyllabic and then he’s just there; present and fierce. It gives Dean motion sickness sometimes.

“You said that…” Eyes darting towards the vampire and back, Castiel explains. “He… was a pain in…” Dean nearly chokes. He’s waving his hands for Castiel to stop talking even before he’s swallowed his food. Benny’s guffawing at the sudden change in the atmosphere between all of them; the pleasure he finds in the whole ordeal written across his face. Color rises to Castiel’s cheeks. “This is one of those things we don’t discuss?” He asks Dean innocently. Benny only laughs harder at that.

“Jesus, Cas.” His unfinished meal perched on his thigh, Dean rolls his shoulder and lets out a sigh. “... and yes, exactly, we don’t discuss it.”

Benny can obviously tell there’s a story behind this turn of events. “Come now, Dean. Cas was just worried about your…” A snicker escapes him. “...safety.”

“Cram it, asshole.” Dean shoots back. There’s little poison to his words. It’s Benny after all. But he’s really not wanting to follow the path this conversation is leading them down.

“If you are shamed by me knowing of your indiscretions with the vampire, Dean. You needn’t be.” Castiel admits calmly. 

Speechless. Cas has rendered him entirely fucking speechless. Blinking repeatedly, Dean just stares at him. He stares at him and tries to figure out first off how the hell a frickin’ angel seemingly has no problem with Dean boning guys as well as girls. Secondly, that he no problem kissing, making out with, and getting handsy with the likes of Dean; and thirdly, apparently no problem with the fact that Dean had been bumping uglies with an abomination during their stay in purgatory. “The hell, Cas?”

“I like you more and more every day, Cas.” Benny interjects with a chuckle as he settles down onto his back to stare at the black night sky. 

“I cannot say that the feeling is mutual… Benny.”

Laughing, the vampire tugs the brim of his hat over his eyes. “Fair enough, man. Fair enough.” Benny shifts again getting comfortable in the dirt before letting his eyes slide shut.

“Cas.” There’s warning in Dean’s tone when he speaks. 

“Yes, Dean?”

“Seriously… the hell?”

Castiel hesitates a moment before answering. “Would you prefer I took issue with your relationship with the vampire?”

“Of course not, Cas… it’s just…”

“Not something you discuss… I understand now.”

Lip quivering as he fluctuates between starting to speak and then deciding better of it, Dean refocuses his attention on the food and the fire. He takes the second rodent off the fire and its spit. When he moves to suffocate the flames, Cas’ hands wave him off and finish the task for him; leaving Dean to eat as much of his meal as possible. If the silence afterward is awkward, none of them move to break it.


	5. Chapter 5

The following afternoon a mob of monsters lays siege to their encampment. They make it out alive but shaken; Castiel bearing the worst of their injuries. Benny’s found a cave; it’s former inhabitant laid to waste by the angel’s hand. Sure, It’s a half day’s walk to fresh water but it provides them shelter enough to recoup and heal. Hopefully out of sight and scent of the locals.

Night finds them around another fire; smaller this time. Dean has Castiel pressed up against him much to the angel’s chagrin. Chin resting on his shoulder, Dean has Castiel’s wrist in hand and is rotating his arm slowly. “That hurt?”

“Everything hurts, Dean.” The angel grouses and tries to pull away.

“Okay… but does that hurt more?” Castiel concentrates on the next rotation. He flinches when Dean pulls his arm above his shoulder. “There?” 

Nodding, Castiel withdraws from Dean’s grip. “I just need to rest.” 

He starts to push off of the hunter; only to have Dean grab his torso and drag him back up against his chest. “Then rest. Ground’ll only make your shoulder worse.”

Benny hums in the background watching their interaction with interest. As many times that they’d found themselves injured and tending to one another’s wounds, Dean had never gone as far as to cradle the angel so blatantly in his arms. Sure, the hunter has a gentle bedside manner about him that was not exactly heard of in purgatory but his actions as of right now are down right doting. Benny would says as much if he didn’t already know that it’d cause Dean to fly off the handle. None of them needed the stress of that at the moment. 

Castiel, for what it’s worth, offers a token resistance before falling back to rest against the hunter. Soon, he drifts off into a still slumber. Dean speaks only after he is sure the angel is truly asleep. “What you offered before… you really think it would work?” His words are awkward and hang heavily from his tongue as he tries to speak.

“No crazier trying it, than this plan of your to get us all to the portal.” Benny’s voice holds a serious tone to it that’s usually not present. “...you really think he’d go for it? Requires getting real friendly with…” He pauses before adding the angel’s usual descriptor. “...an abomination.”

“You’d be surprised.” Dean replies with a hint of a smile playing on his lips as he replays a now distant memory. Hell, even the look on Meg’s face when Cas had twirled her up against the wall and gave her that deep, hungry kiss… it had been hysterical. The events following, not so much, but to see that demon bitch standing there; her black eyes wide in honest shock. Hilarious.

“Would I now?”

Dean runs his fingers absentmindedly through Cas’ hair as he begins to speak. “See, we were on this job and we ended up having to work with this demon, kind of an... assured mutual destruction... package kind of deal.” Even in the dark, Benny can see the smile that had just started to finally spread across the hunter’s face. It’s clear in the way that Dean talks about his time topside that even with so much shit going down around them that he truly, honestly loves what he does.

“Cas, he, uh… managed to run into some adult entertainment, some porn, on our hotel cable while my brother and I were busy doing some research.” Dean chuckles as he remembers the angel’s confusion. The real kicker had been when instead of focusing on the screen, Castiel’s eyes and dropped in shock to his own lap. Dean wonders how differently things would have progressed that night if Samuel hadn’t shown up and if… well, there were a million ifs to be had in their line of work. “Anyway, later… shit’s hit the fan and we’re splitting up to try our damnedest to gank this demon and find out what the hell has been going on. And Meg, thinking she’s going to get one over on Cas, pushes up against him and gives him a kiss; for good luck, you see? And, Cas retaliates by up and grabbing her.” Licking his lips, Dean smiles as he paints out the scene even further. “He pulls her close, his hands all up in her hair, on her face and proceeds to kiss the hell out of her… well, not literally.” He sighs at the sudden nostalgic twinge the memory causes. “It was pretty damn funny at the time.”

“...he didn’t get burnt and she didn’t start sizzling or any of that whacky stuff?” Benny asks grimly. As funny as the hunter had assured him the incident was, there was something about it that didn’t quite meet up with what Benny’s master had always told him.

“Nah, man. No different than…” Dean pauses for a moment as if to truly consider his words. “No different than when you and I touch.” And he means it. Well, inasmuch as that, he can speak for how Cas felt macking on Meg. There’d certainly been no physical after effects beyond the demon’s shocked faltering and Cas’ furtive glances at him and Sam as he stoically did not discuss the incident. 

“Hmmm.”

Jesus Christ on a Cracker. What now? “Hmmm, what?”

“Strange, is all.”

“Strange, how?” Dean challenges. He’s seen plenty of demons and monsters flee in Cas’ presence but not of them catch fire or burn up; not while he’s contained within his vessel. What exactly is Benny going on about; burning and sizzling? It wasn’t like angels were pure creatures; just their grace. Well, that’s how Cas had explained things.

“Sure, he’s all lit up with the bright white… but, Dean, do you know for a fact Cas is an angel?”

“Uh, yeah.” He’d seen the wings himself. The stuff Cas was capable of… there wasn’t a demon around save for the King of Hell that powerful. And even Crowley couldn’t pull off some of the crazy shit that Cas had. Benny’s insinuation though, it was unsettling. Then again, maybe purgatory was giving them all a case of the crazies. “What’s your point, Benny?”

“Even if it doesn’t cause him to burn or something, it should bother him something fierce…” Benny explains. “...deep down to his core, you know? Proximity to creatures like me… and you.”

Dean frowns at that. “He’s never said…” He plays back various encounters between himself and Cas, between Cas and Sam, between Cas and pretty much anyone else in their lives. The only time he’d seemed truly uncomfortable had been in the presence of Uriel or Zachariah. Then again, there had been the deal with Crowley which had led them to this entire mess. Cas wasn’t exactly known to not saddle up with demons if the means met an end. That didn’t make him any less of an angel though, right?

“And probably never will.” Benny replies, interrupting Dean’s thoughts. “I reckon he’s put together different than mosta his kind.”

Letting the hand that had been combing through Cas’s hair fall to the angel’s chest, Dean nods thoughtfully. “Sounds about right.” Even Cas had mentioned how he felt a distinct otherness around angels, an otherness that was only exacerbated in the presence of humans and monster alike. 

“Alright then.” Benny mumbles.

“Alright then what?”

“I’ll do it… given your permission that is.”

“Huh… oh.” Dean’s breath catches in his throat as the conversation comes full circle. He’d almost forgotten the true topic of their current discussion; allowing Benny to lay his mark upon Cas. His mind suddenly filling with savage images of Benny vamping out and tearing into the angel, Dean shudders. “You know, it can’t be like how we…”

Benny interrupts him, something he’s grown more apt to do lately. “That is, brother, a fact I am all too aware of.”

***

Dean’s arms are empty when he wakes the next morning. In fact, save for himself, the entire cave is empty. Jumping to his feet, he’s halfway out the entrance in a panic before he realises that he can hear Benny and Cas’ voices outside. 

“And, it doesn’t hurt them, these animals when they are… snared?” Castiel is asking in a gentle tone that Dean hasn’t heard since the whole thing about the bees had come into play back after they’d left the psych ward. A heavy unease settles in his stomach as he continues to eavesdrop.

“Oh, it hurts them alright. But…” There’s a snapping sound and Benny’s voice continues. “...it’s quick.” There’s a hum of acknowledgement but no outright protests from the angel.

Wait, Benny is teaching Cas how to set traps? What? Dean wills his heart to stop racing from his abrupt awakening and strolls outside to meet up with the two of them. Aiming for nonchalance, he greets them with lyrics from a musical that his mom used to sing while she folded laundry. “Morning starshine.”

“The morning star does not shine here.” Castiel replies as he fiddles with one of the snares he was focused on trying to set. 

The morning star does not shine… what? Dean quirks an eyebrow in Cas’s direction. The hell was he on about? Oh. Oh, right. Lucifer. The Morning Star. He hadn’t even thought about the lyrics like that. Crazy. “Right. Suppose he doesn’t, does he? He’s still back home… in his cage?”

“God willing.” Castiel says as he walks a few feet from the cave. He leans down and places his trap under some bramble before returning to their side.

“God willing.” Dean repeats quietly as he stretches out. He shakes off Cas’ quirky response a little easier than he would have just over a week prior. “Morning then, Cas… Benny.”

“Aren’t you chipper.” Benny replies as he hands Castiel another snare. He hasn’t addressed the hunter directly and doesn’t seem to be moving to do so anytime soon. “I’m going to check the area, maybe grab some water.” He’s shrugging on a bag of gear before Dean has even blinked the sleep out of his eyes.

“By yourself?”

“...safer for a quick trip like this.” Benny looks to the sky. Probably estimating the time of day, Dean thinks. “Besides, you two have some shit to discuss.”

Castiel watches the vampire go without saying a word. He fiddles with another trap in his hands until it’s ready. Nodding at Dean, he wanders a few yards away from the cave entrance this time and stashes it against the base of a tree. He’s wiping his hands off on his trenchcoat when he decides to ask. “What are we to discuss?”

Son of a bitch. He hadn’t even been up a full ten minutes yet. Benny had sounded the alarm and then left him here holding the bag. “Suppose we do.”

“Go on.” Castiel urges.

Dean scowls and stares off into the treeline. “It’s not that easy for me to talk about, Cas.”

“Should we return to the cave? You have always been better baring your soul in the dark.” Castiel replies in a hushed tone.

Swallowing back the lump Cas’ words cause to form in his throat, Dean nods. He hadn’t really ever thought of it like that. But, he couldn’t deny the truth in the words. Dean ducks back into the cave silently. Castiel follows shortly thereafter.

***

They settle against the cave wall; shoulder to shoulder. Neither speak at first. Surprisingly, Dean finally finds it in himself to breach the topic. “Benny? He, uh, came up with a way to camouflage me from the locals…”

That gets Castiel’s attention about as quickly as Dean expects. He’s sitting up straighter and is completely focused. It’s enough to give Dean whiplash, which in addition to motion sickness is a common side effect of living with an angel. “How?” Casl is asking. “It actually works? What is it? Does it work… around me?”

“Dunno. That’s what we need to talk about.” Dean shifts and lays his scythe across his lap. “The other day when you could… smell him on me?” Castiel nods slowly as the hunter speaks. “That’s how.”

“But you stopped when you found me?”

“Yeah.”

“You shouldn’t have.” Castiel chastises him. 

“Cas.”

“This is serious, Dean. Look at how many times we’ve almost lost our lives! How many times you’ve almost lost your life. What about Sam? What about…” Castiel pauses, bowing his head before he continues. “I, for one, do not actually want to find out where monsters go when they die in monster heaven.”

Hiding behind his closed eyes, Dean tries not to cringe at the angel’s words. They meant Cas saw himself as a monster. And that? That broke his fucking heart. Even at his worst, Cas was no monster. “Cas…”

“... you stopped because of me. Because of what we… used to have… before the Leviathan?” There is no question present in the angel’s words. And Dean has no words of his own to offer back in return He manages a small nod before freezing up. “You can’t stop. When the vampire returns, you need to…”

Dean cuts him off. “I’m supposed to be talking to you about… that. I’m supposed to be convincing you that it’s an option… for you.”

He isn’t sure what exactly he’d been expecting from Cas in reaction to the suggestion. He can easily imagine more than a single scenario; ranging from outrage to apathetic acceptance. And when Cas finally does break the silence and answers, the fiery glare he is giving Dean is entirely at odds with his response. “I’ll comply.” Until he adds, “anything for you, Dean.”

***

They’ve been sitting in the cave for what feels like hours. After Castiel had sent Dean’s head spinning by consenting to be marked by Benny, the hunter was pretty much a hot mess. As much as Dean had ended up enjoying his and the vamp’s encounters, he missed what Cas and him had shared before Sam had said yes to Lucifer… before Dick fucking Roman. And damn, if that didn’t feel like a lifetime or two ago. 

Dean takes to pacing and checking the entrance over and over again; awaiting Benny’s return. It’s not the first time they’ve solo’d a task. It’s still unusual enough to feel off though. He watches Cas as he stares at the cave wall almost as if he could decipher some meaning to life scrawled there amongst the creases and crevices of the stone. 

In the end, Dean makes up his mind to try and recapture what him and Cas had somehow lost along the way. If it does nothing more than soothe the way for what’s about to occur between Cas and Benny, Dean is willing to deal with it. Dropping silently to his knees, he crawls across the cave floor until he is nearly straddling Castiel’s lap. The angel’s expression is a deep scowl shaded with shame and desire. He doesn’t reach out to run his fingers over Dean’s face as he would have in the past. He doesn’t lean forward to steal the kiss hiding in the corner of the hunter’s mouth either. He doesn’t move at all. 

“Cas, please.” Dean settles over his lap. Gripping the angel’s face between his hands, he tilts Cas’ chin up. He can’t look anywhere but Dean now. “Whatever you’re thinking; you’re wrong. I never stopped wanting this… wanting you.”

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness…” Castiel murmurs as he averts his eyes. “...or you.”

“Not for you to decide.” Dean leans in; his lips slide gently against Cas’s unmoving ones. He doesn’t push for the kiss he is truly dying for. Instead, he allows sensations of their minimal contact to wash over him; Cas’ sharp intake of air and the following exhale, the swell of his lips pressing ever so lightly against Dean’s. He licks his way in slowly, almost ready to give up, when Cas finally parts his lips and allows the hunter to truly kiss him. 

Once he’s given in, Castiel can’t seem to hold himself back. His hands are in Dean’s hair, curling around his neck and sliding around his waist as he moans into the his mouth. And Dean? Dean is so on board for it. He sucks and nips at Cas’ lips just to hear the whimpers it draws out of the angel. He plunders Cas’ mouth just to feel the restless shifting beneath his spread legs. 

Neither of them are in any shape to do more and in all honesty, they’ve probably set off a stink bomb of pheromones. Reluctantly, Dean pulls back; he’s flushed and breathing erratically but it’s honestly the best he’s felt in a long time. 

“Dean…” Castiel’s voice is completely wrecked. He licks his lips slowly and tilts his head as he stares at the hunter. “I’m so sorry.” His eyes are wet with the regret; his cheeks red with shame.

If it wasn’t for their past, Dean could’ve assumed the apology was intended over the kiss. But he knows better. “Stop. Cas, stop.” He press a thumb over Cas’ lips to silence him. Dean’s hands are so dirty, he actually feels bad for subjecting Cas to them. But he can’t listen to the angel tear himself down again. “Dick Roman is dead… because of you.” It’s true. Without Cas’ involvement, the spell off of the Leviathan tablet would’ve never worked.

“Because of you…” Castiel counters as he speaks around the hunter’s thumb. “I was off chasing bumble bees and butterflies.”

“Because of us.” Dean replies resolutely; hoping his tone is enough to end the argument before it begins.


	6. Chapter 6

If Benny had been expecting a tense scene when he returned, he ends up mistaken. Castiel has lain his trenchcoat out on the ground and is sitting on top of it with his legs crossed. His hospital scrubs are dingy with dirt and who knew what else but he appears relaxed. That is enough to give the vampire pause. For as long as he’s known Castiel, the angel was never not on guard. 

“Water?” Dean asks coming up behind him. Benny shrugs off one of the bladders and offers it to him. He drinks sparingly from it before offering it to Castiel who waves it off but not without a small, somewhat forced smile. Dean returns the bladder to Benny and sets down a few feet away from the angel.

Knowing neither of them are going to spit out what went down between them in his absence, Benny decides to debrief them on the events of his own day. “So, found myself another mutt.” He explains as he crouches down to squat by the fire. Benny glances up at the blackened roof of the cave briefly then continues. “Worked it over for some intel… we’re getting close but there’s still maybe a week, maybe less between us and it. Depending on how fast we’re moving… how much our injuries are slowing us down.”

Castiel meets his gaze over the flames. “Were there other… mutts?”

“Not within sniffing distance. Not yet.” Benny answers honestly. He spares a glance at Dean. “That’ll change by morning.” 

It’s not entirely clear if his words are a statement or a question. But, Dean’s nodding as the vampire speaks. “Always does.” 

“It would seem my decision is made for me then.” Castiel states calmly. He turns his gaze to Dean. “...if you truly think it will work.”

Benny isn’t normally one to be surprised by much in the world; this one or the real one. But, God damn, if he isn’t. He has no idea what the hunter has said to convince Castiel. There’s nothing he can imagine a mortal man saying that would coerce a being like the angel to… partake in such carnal acts with a vampire. He’d heard stories of nostalgia many times from Dean. Still, what was intended was a far cry more lascivious than lip locking with a demon. “Can’t say it will… but, it don’t… “ Benny’s words fail him briefly. “Our situation is no more dire for it.” 

“Okay.” The hesitancy the vampire had been hearing for days in the Dean’s voice is gone. Benny frowns a little as his curiosity about their conversation niggles at him. 

“What do we do?” Castiel asks plainly. He looks between Benny and Dean with an open and curious expression on his face. “I am fully aware of the end result, but require clarification on the means.”

Dean quirks an eyebrow at Cas’ word choice but refrains from teasing him. It feels like old times and that’s enough for him right now. “You and I both know you don’t need a step by step manual to that, Cas.”

A withering glare later, Castiel juts his chin out at Dean. “I was asking for the vam… for Benny’s…” He pauses as if gathering words onto his tongue. “... benefit.”

Grinning, Dean can’t help himself. Cas hasn’t left himself this wide open for teasing in a very long time. In any case, he’s hoping to break the ice. “Benny’s benefit? Been busy brooding ‘bout Benny?”

The sigh of exasperation that Castiel lets out speaks of hesitant amusement rather than true annoyance. “Dean. This is a serious matter.”

“Brutally…” The hunter admits with a wink.

“Dean!”

Benny has shrugged off his supplies and gear and is watching their interactions with a keen, but entertained interest. They’d obviously gotten something off of their chests in his absence because this is more than either of them had spoken to each other, outside of arguing, for days; not to mention the lightheartedness behind it. It’s an example of the something about humanity that Benny just can’t bring himself to destroy. Yeah, even with the angel.

Licking his lips and grinning sidelong at Castiel, Dean’s eyes wander over him. Truth be told, he was nervous as hell. It had been at least over a year, maybe closer to two, since him and Cas had done anything more than kiss. There had be plenty of chances for more but then the truth about Eve and Crowley had come out. Dean had been beyond pissed and hurt that Cas had not only gone behind their backs and made a demon deal but also that he’d lied to him. Then Cas, he’d gone off the deep end smoting thousands. Then, he’d died. Or so Dean had thought. There’d been the Leviathans to focus on and... But that was all behind them. He breaks the unintended lapse into silence with a question. “What are you comfortable with, Cas?”

Head bowed ever so slightly, he looks from Dean to Benny and back. Castiel swallows once and the replies. “Perhaps, I should remain an observer at first?” He suggests with a question lingering on his words.

Lips pursed as he nods, Dean admits. “That has its merits. Benny?”

“Your show, brother. You’re the one calling the shots… this time.”

“You did not… call the shots… previously?” Castiel inquires curiously. There’s shock clearly playing out on the angel’s face; widened eyes, parted lips, and flared nostrils.

Chuckling, Dean doesn’t respond. That in itself gives the answer away, but at least he doesn’t have to admit it. Instead, he has his eyes on the vampire deciding what his next move will be. He knows that ultimately he can’t, they can’t, spook Cas off. It’s easy enough to assume that kissing is off limits with Benny, which is honestly a crying shame. Then again, maybe kissing wasn’t off the menu entirely… a vamp couldn’t accidentally infect and angel, right? 

“Actually, Cas… change of plans.” Dean crawls up next to him intentionally mimicking his actions from earlier that day. Castiel is watching him with wide eyes and parted lips. “Mind joining us, Benny?” The vampire knee-walks to the angel’s side without saying a word. “See, I get that… your mouth and teeth are, shall we say, toxic. But...”

“But not to him…” Benny leers meeting Dean’s eyes. He reaches up and, with a far gentler hand than he’d used on the hunter, turns Castiel’s upturned face to his own. “Last chance to back out, flyboy.”

Eyes narrowing, Castiel doesn’t wait for the vampire to move. Kissing is one aspect of human sexuality that he’s more than a little versed in and fairly comfortable with. Hands on Benny’s face, he pulls him in and has the creature’s lips captured by his own before the bantering and flirting can escalate any further. 

Castiel licks past his lips with intent only to draw back with a startled gasp when he feels Benny’s fangs descend. It’s enough to startle him. His ears are ringing, but he’s not going to allow his own aversions to put Dean in danger... again. Castiel presses forward and kisses Benny anew; mindful of injuring his own lips on the sharp jagged teeth now filling his companion’s mouth. 

“Christ.” Dean gasps behind him. Castiel can’t help but smile against Benny’s mouth at the familiarity of it. Even here, the hunter’s reactions are unchanged. Purgatory has made him no less a man of lust than he was walking the Earth. It’s a calming realization. 

Benny had remained stock still after vamping out. It wasn’t until the angel had all but plastered himself against him teeth and all that, when he finally reacted. Sliding his hands up and under the thin material of the angel’s scrubs, Benny settles his hands just under Castiel’s ribs. He curls his fingers into the soft patches of skin he’s finds there as the angel does quite a job at ravaging his mouth. He was starting to understand Dean’s fascination..

Speaking of Dean, Benny notices that the hunter has slid up behind Castiel. His face is pressed into the angel’s neck. He’s peppering it with small bites and nips; careful not to break skin or leave too much of his own saliva behind. 

Reluctantly, Benny pulls away from Castiel. If he had any need to breathe, he’s sure he’d be breathless from the onslaught. He tugs off his own shirt and coat; nodding for the angel and hunter to do the same. The scars marring Castiel’s skin give him yet another pause. Benny draws his fingers over them tenderly. There’s a hint of spellwork burning white where skin hadn’t healed properly. “What did this mean?” He asks softly as he traces the circle down and over the angel’s stomach.

“It’s a Enochian banishing spell…” Castiel replies. “... against angels.”

Benny’s eyes fly up to Castiel’s. He’d always assumed that Dean had meant the angel had rebelled in a more metaphysical way. Not that he’d mutinied entirely. Benny seeks out the hunter’s eyes for confirmation and finds it shining brightly back at him. The two of them were making more and more sense. “Oh.” He replies quietly. 

Returning his attention to the angel’s body, Benny drops his hands to Castiel’s thighs. “I’m going to touch you… now.” He offers in quiet warning. When Dean doesn’t reach out to stop him, Benny slides his hands slowing inside the waistline of the angel’s pants. Truth be told, he’s not entirely sure what he’s expecting to find. 

At first, Dean had referred to angels as junkless. But as time had worn on, it became pretty clear that in the hunter’s unique vocabulary that junkless meant that Dean thought them cowards… not that they were genetalia-free per se. The realization in itself had been amusing. After all, it had been well over a thousand years since an angel had walked the Earth, well before Benny’s time there, so the confusion amongst the demonic races and mankind wasn’t entirely unwarranted. That and the fact that this side of purgatory, the only one amongst them that regularly passed any bodily fluids was Dean. It wasn’t like Benny was privy to a quick sneak and peek when Cas was relieving himself. 

Back on track, Benny was essentially jumping in, with his hands down Castiel’s pants completely unknowing of what he was going to find there. One thing was for sure, he absolutely had not expected to find the hot and hardened shaft of Castiel’s dick. He had absolutely not expected the angel to find any sort of pleasure in their imminent coupling. Again, he was never so surprised to be wrong in his entire life.

Groaning, Benny takes Castiel in hand and strokes him over and over again. The desperate sound that falls from the angel’s lips at this leave him momentarily gaping. Realizing he’s getting ahead of himself, he pulls back. Dean is whispering low and dark into Castiel’s ear. So low, that even Benny isn’t privy to what’s being said. But gauging by the expression on the angel’s face, it’s almost more than Castiel can stand. And Benny would as soon get the party started instead of pushing it to end as soon as it had began. 

“This is going to get bloody.” He offers in warning before dragging his fangs over his own wrist. The blood flows quickly over his palm; dripping down the long lines of his fingers. This time when he takes the angel in hand, his movements are slick with it. Dipping past the base of Castiel’s cock, Benny spreads his scent where he knows humans to give off the most heat and the most fragrance. Writhing between them, Castiel cries out as Dean’s hands join the vampire’s on his body.

Dean drags his now bloodied hand up and over Castiel’s chest. He gives him a reassuring squeeze before standing up behind the two of them. It’s obvious to Benny by the bulge in Dean’s pants, that he’s more than on board with everything. The vampire watches in disbelief as Dean shoves his jeans down to his thighs and offers his cock to Castiel. His hands stilling in their exploration, Benny is completely taken aback by the hungry sounds coming from the angel’s lips as he takes Dean into his mouth. It’s obvious now that they’ve done this before; from Dean’s reassuring caresses along Castiel’s jaw to the way the angel’s eyes flutter shut trusting the man to take good care of him in such an exposed state. It takes the vampire a moment to reconcile everything; but only just a moment. 

Adding to the blood soaked mess, Benny takes hold of Castiel’s neck and guides him faster and deeper over Dean’s cock. Despite remaining untouched, his moans join their sounds of pleasure echoing against the cave walls. The sight of the two of them is just too much for Benny not to respond to. This was supposed to be a simple circle jerk. Or at least, that’s what he’d assumed was going to happen. It was ending up so much more than that.

“That’s it.” Benny encourages. “You look damn good like that, Cas.” Removing his hand from the angel’s dick, he reaches out for the hunter’s instead. The blood seeping from his wrist has lessened to an almost nonexistent drip. Unless he wants to tear into himself again, he needs to get the larger part of this show on the road. Avoiding any exposed wounds and torn flesh on the hunter, Benny drags his hands over him slowly until he’s satisfied it’d take more than a few errant beast to track him. Once he’s finished, he settles back on his heels to enjoy the show. His own hand now replaced by Dean’s, Benny watches Castiel with a sharp focus as he gives himself over entirely to the hunter.

And Dean? As far as Benny can tell, he’s a whimpering mess. There’s nothing in their union that had been in his own and the hunter’s previous escapades. Together, Castiel and Dean are an entirely different animal. And God damn, if Benny doesn’t want; if he doesn’t desire it with every ounce of his being.

Dean reaches completion with a shocked grunt. Fingers twined through Castiel’s hair, he holds the angel in place forcing him to taken in every last spasm before finally allowing himself to fall to his knees. It’s clear enough to see in the hunter’s eyes that every part of him wants to reach out and smother Castiel in hungry kisses. It’s only the presence of Benny’s blood that stops him. Instead, Dean presses his mouth to the angels ear flooding it with more unheard whispers as he takes Castiel in hand again. It doesn’t take much to drag Cas to the edge. “Benny?” Dean manages his name loud enough to get past the ringing in the vampire’s ears. “...the blood, I can’t.” He sounds pained by the fact. Benny can’t help but take mercy.

Nodding, the vampire slithers onto his belly; thankful for Castiel’s trenchcoat beneath him. He’s barely taken the angel’s dick between his lip-shielded fangs when Castiel climaxes with a shout.

He expects it to burn him from the inside out; the sheer apostasy of their actions damning him. It doesn’t happen. Benny swallows down every drop; savoring it as a treat; a once in a lifetime occurrence. It probably will be. When Castiel slumps back against Dean, Benny pushes himself quickly to his feet. He needs little coaxing to draw out his own peak. “Eyes open, mouth closed.” He reminds Dean and informs Castiel as he begins to jack himself in earnest. 

His seed now splattered over their faces, Benny gasps down at the sight they make. The angel is dragging his tongue up and over Dean’s chin, along his jaw and around the curve of his eye socket. Dean’s eyes slide shut as he presses into Castiel’s touch. It’s the closest to being at peace that Benny has witnessed the hunter ever seem. It settles his nerves quite considerably. He’s finally in agreement with Dean. They are getting the three of them to the portal and topside if it kills him.


	7. Chapter 7

They leave camp the next morning; Castiel retrieves his still empty snare traps for future use.. The first hour is tense as they ready themselves for another attack. It doesn’t come. Dean’s spirits begin to lift as the day progresses. He’s got Cas and he’s got Benny. For purgatory, that ain’t bad. He’d spent so many months wishing Sam was at his side only to flip-flop and give thanks that he’d been across the room from exploding Dick. The clarity and relief of the day was more than welcome.

He’s trailing a few feet behind the vampire and angel; a big dumb, smile plastered over his face. As far as he can tell, Benny’s avidly explaining the differences between edible and poisonous plant life in purgatory to Cas. It’s a subject that Cas seems wholeheartedly keen on mastering. And while he doesn’t actually taste the offered specimens, Dean notices the angel’s eyes sliding shut as he inhales aroma after aroma. He wonders if there had ever been any insects in Purgatory and if any of them would have been anything like a bee.

“He’s a quick study.” Dean smiles and winks at Benny as he trots to catch up. Scythe in hand, he allows his attention to be split between watching the treeline and following Benny and Cas’ conversation.

“Of course I am a quick study. I am a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent. If I intend to know of something, it will come to pass.”

“That so?” Benny’s smiling right alongside Dean at any rate. The transformation in the angel from his previously aloof state to his current one, while amusing, was proving a bit of a distraction for them both. He was thankful that the act of marking seemed to be doing its trick.

“It is.” Castiel reassures him with a sagacious nod. 

***

The last time Dean had actually seen Cas smile so openly, he’d been overtaken by the souls of the Leviathan. So, as far as he’s concerned… Benny getting the drop on him and tackling him to the forest floor… entirely the angel’s fault. Landing with a startled huff, Dean wastes little time scrambling to fend off Benny’s attack; trying to shift his balance so that he’ll fall as well.

“Ah, ah, ah…” The vampire teases with a low chuckle before gripping Dean’s wrists tight and holding them over his head. “You’re distracted.” He sing songs.

“And you’re a dick!” Dean laughs. His struggles are token. He’s plenty happy to wrestle and spar; anything to rid themselves of the nervous energy built up in their veins. In any case, it seems to amuse the hell out of Cas. 

“Hey, hot wings. Give me a hand…” Benny calls Castiel over with a smirk. Dean snickers as he presses his wrists into the vampire’s strong grip.

The unreserved smile slips slowly from the angel’s face. “What?” Castiel looks between the two of them; apprehension spreading over his features. 

Benny pauses and looks over at him. “A hand… give me one.” Beneath him, the hunter bucks his hips up trying to dislodge him. He twists Dean’s wrists together; bone on bone until he’s gasping and settling back down into the dirt. 

“That would be an unfair advantage.” Castiel scowls openly

“That’s the point.” Benny laughs out.

“I do no understand.” 

“Cas…” The angel meets Dean’s eyes when he speaks but doesn’t respond. “It’s okay. It’s…” He licks his lips as he tries to think of a way to explain. “It’s fun. Like sex but… not. Like an expression of…”

“Companionship?” Benny finishes off with a hint of questioning hanging from his lips.

Castiel frowns as he mulls over their words. “Similar to how you and Sam refer to one another with slanderous terms such as bitch and jerk… only as a physical manifestation?”

“Now you’re getting it.” Dean says with a smile.

Leering, Benny leans over him. “So, which one of you is the bitch?” Dean growls playfully in response; much to the vampire’s surprise. 

“That is inaccurate.” Cas is more engaged but he still hasn’t joined them. They both look to him with amused looks when he speaks. “... if memory serves. Sam is the one referred to as: bitch.”

Dean giggles. He honest to shit giggles. It’s starting to cross his mind that he’s almost too giddy for their current circumstances. He quickly writes it off as doing the best with what you’re given. Hoping neither of them saw him slip into such a serious tone, Dean growls once more before replying to Cas in a breathy tone. “Woof.”

Cas lets out a gasp of exasperation and amusement. Dean totally considers it a win because that was a laugh if he’d ever heard one. Shaking his head, Cas mutters. “I believe I prefer sexual relations to this form of companionship.”

Benny’s laughing loud and open at the angel’s words. “Me too, Cas, me too.” 

***

Dean wakes the next morning still reeling from the giddiness of the night before. Shaking Benny awake, he offers Cas a brief nod before he heads out to check the traps they’d place for food along the perimeter. The air is brisk against his skin and rouses him into a clear alertness faster than any cup of joe or 5-hour energy drink ever had. 

Benny has Cas tucked under his arm when Dean finally makes his way back within seeing distance of their camp. If it weren't for the angel's hand spread across the expanse of the vampire's chest, he could easily assume that Cas had been berating himself for past sins... again. The bow of Benny's head and the press of his lips to top of Cas' head; they told a different story.

Slipping into the cover of the forest, Dean approaches the camp as silently as possible. There's no doubt in his mind that Benny will scent him before long if he already hasn't. But Cas won't. So, Dean watches from afar; hoping the angel grants himself some reprieve under the vampire's affection.

It doesn't take long. Soon, Benny's reaching up and running his dirty hand over the curve of Cas' cheek. Dean grimaces when he realizes that the vampire is wiping tears from the angel's face. But, if that's what Cas needed in his absence... he'll give it to him. Benny's gentle kisses drift from Cas' hairline over his forehead, along the slope of his eyebrows, jump over to his nose and finally hover just above his lips. 

Dean can't help but smile as he watches Cas's squint at Benny; like he's a puzzle or a mystery that the angel should be able to figure out. And Benny? Benny's laugh can be heard for a least a few dozen yards. It's music to the hunter's ears. Cas closes the gap between their lips with a sudden burst of movement. His hand now curved around the thick lines of the vampire's neck, Cas thumbs Benny's adam's apple as he sucks and licks his way into his mouth. 

When the hunter's next breath comes easy and the next one easier still, he finds himself truly and honestly surprised at himself. Dean had honestly expected a flare of jealous or a streak of possessive anger burn through his mind like wildfire. It never did. Instead, as he settles against the hard lines of his cover... he finds that the best way to describe how seeing the two of them together makes him feel is... accepted. There's no qualifiers to what the three of them have; not here. 

Dean moves only when they draw apart. Walking softly, he makes his way for the camp. When the two of him finally turn to acknowledge his approach, he simply smiles and begins to back up their gear for the day. 

***

Another day, another endless line of trees, dirt and sky. Dean’s tired, hungry and thirsty. His companions aren’t looking much better. It’s been over five days since they’ve left the cave. There hasn’t been a chance to rest in days. Once they’d been scented, it had been a steady onslaught of attacks. By the time every last one of the sons of bitches had been cut down, daylight was rearing its ugly head and there was no way they could afford not to keep moving; not when it gave them the ability to see the attacks coming.

“We're getting close.” Benny’s voice cuts through the air startling the hunter.

Huffing at his own jumpiness, Dean responds unhappily. “Really? I don't see crap. I mean, what the hell is this escape hatch supposed to look like?”

“He doesn't know.” There is no accusation in his voice, no contempt for the vampire; just an explanation. Castiel is fatigued from travel and what little hope there had been to cling to is quickly fading.

“Hey!” Dean reaches out and grabs Benny’s arm. “You just drug me into the fire. Please tell me you know.”

Benny’s nodding in reassurance. “It's here. They promised.”

They? They?! “Oh, they? Well, that's comforting!” Dean doesn’t mean to sound so condescending, he too is as exhausted from their travels as Cas. 

“Well, even if it does exist…” Castiel begins; his argument one that had not been mentioned since before the events in the cave. 

Benny cuts him off with a weary sigh that has started to bear a striking similarity to Dean’s. “Broken record, Cas.”

“Dean, it's a human portal. There's still no proof that an angel can pass –

Not this again. He thought they’d finally moved past it. “Stow it, Cas. You're coming. That's final.”

And now Castiel is the one sighing. “I'm just saying…” He reaches out and places a hand on Dean’s sagging shoulder. He meets the hunter’s gaze with a steady sureness that hadn’t been there before. “I’m just saying that ...if it doesn't work... thank you for everything.”

Cas’ words are pretty much the angel equivalent to saying I love you, Dean realizes with a jolt. Lip quivering, he swallows his emotions down. The way their luck is going, they’ll get him killed. “Save the Hallmark. Okay? It's gonna work. Nobody gets left behind.” Pulling away from Cas’ grasp, Dean turns and walks further down the path.

Behind him Castiel looks to Benny with a sadness spreading over his face, he nods curtly at the vampire as if to say ‘you too’ before trudging along after Dean. 

***

“Maybe you were lied to. Maybe there is no seam.” Castiel looks hesitant to express his doubt but does so anyway. 

Shaking his head, Benny doesn’t bother to look his way. “I lie. I don't get lied to. Aren't you guys all about faith?”

“Not particularly.” Castiel admits catching Benny off guard. Even after their time together, each revelation that the angel offers that paints his own kind in a less than perfect light… it startles him.

It is during this revelation that their attention is drawn to a leaf that appears to be borne upward by an air current. Their eyes follow its trajectory and find a patch of blue light shimmering on top of a cliff far above their position.

“Oh, ye of frigging little faith.” Benny drawls; a shit eating grin spreading across his face.

Dean watches it float at eye level just in front of his face before the wind sweeps it up and carries it higher. “What the hell?” 

Awe filling his voice, Castiel turns to Dean. “There it is. It's reacting to you.”

Benny nods in Dean’s direction. “All right. Ready?”

In an attempt to reassure the vampire, Dean doesn’t hesitate to roll up his sleeve and slice into his forearm. “Just like we talked about.”

“Putting a lot of trust in you, brother.” There’s not exactly hesitation in Benny’s voice; just fear.

“You earned it.” And as a Winchester saying that to a vampire, that’s something. Reaching out, Dean grips Benny’s arm as he cuts a stripe similar to his own across the skin. 

“I'll see you two on the other side.” The vampire replies softly. He takes a breath and readies himself for the side effects of the spell.

Chanting, Dean meets Benny’s gaze and holds it. “Conjunti sumus, unum sumus.” When the spell overtakes the vampire’s body, his eyes drift skyward and his body stiffens. Dean watches as Benny’s arm glows first with red and then white light. A lump forms in the hunter’s throat as the red consumes the vampire. And then he feels a searing pain as the light flows into his arm through the wound. Grimacing, he turns to Cas. “Let’s go.” 

They’ve made it up the hillside and are skirting the cliff when Castiel cries out in alarm. “Dean, wait!”

They sky, it seems, has opened up and black spirals of smoke rain down around them. The ground shakes as something strikes down. As the smoke clears, Dean spots them. Leviathan. Son of a bitch. 

Above them, the portal shimmers and moves; it’s blue light flaring and fading. Dean is not about to let these dicks prevent them from making it home; not now that they’ve gotten so close! He swings at the first Leviathan. It ducks before lashing out. The hunter finds himself hurled to the ground; gasping for breath. He rolls downhill to evade another attack.

Meanwhile, Castiel moves in on Dean’s attacker. He places his hand on its head only to crumple as a second Leviathan kicks in the back of his legs. The angel takes a few punches before he’s forced to fall to his knees. Now that he’s fallen, they focus their attack solely on him; punching and kicking. After a while, even Castiel cannot defend himself against their unrelenting attack and falls to the ground.

One of the Leviathan drags him up and onto his feet. Castiel attempt to fight back. He hits the creature. It flies back much to his surprise. His victory is short lived, however, as the other Leviathan grabs him; mouth transforming.

Heart hammering in his chest, Dean swings wildly at the Leviathan seconds away from consuming Cas. Its head falls to the ground with a loud thump. There’s barely a moment past and then the second Leviathan screams and launches itself at them. Castiel falls to his knees as he pushes it down and away from Dean. The hunter decapitates with a feral shout. Chest heaving, he offers his hand to Cas. “We gotta move! The portal’s closing!” He drags the angel to his feet. “Cas! Damn it! Come on!” Stumbling, Castiel attempts to follow but he’s falling too far behind. 

When Dean reaches the portal, he steps into it praying it won’t close with half of his body already in it. He stretches out his hand to Cas. “Come on!” Gripping Dean’s hand, Castiel allows himself to be pulled up. “I got you! Hold on!” 

He holds on as tight as he can, only to have rocks beneath him slide out from under his feet. “Dean!” Castiel’s voice breaks as he screams.

“Hold on!”

Their fingers are wrenched apart as Castiel loses his grip. He slides halfway down the embankment before he’s able to stop. The angel looks up and into the hunter’s eyes. He cries out once more before the portal closes; taking him with it. “Dean!”


	8. Chapter 8

The darkness swallows him whole as the portals flares open only to spit him out. Dean grips his scythe and jumps to his feet. He’s in another god damn forest. It’s night. And he’d failed Cas… again. Movement in the bushes draw his thoughts from regret to survival. Dean cuts through the trees evading the sound. He’s not running in any particular direction; just away.

And that’s when he happens upon it; a campsite; an honest to God campsite with the tent, the folding chairs, the cooler, … the works. He comes to a halting stop. Digging through the gear stashed outside of the tent, Dean retrieves a knife, some rope, and a gun before the inhabitants of the campsite make themselves know. He pulls himself into a defensive stance when a man about his own size exits the tent. “Where am I?!”

“What?!” Fear is rolling off of the guy in waves as he approaches Dean’s dirty and blood stained form. A woman peeks out of the tent and Dean immediately cocks the gun at her. Even if her mate, boyfriend… spouse coul overpower the hunter, he won’t with a gun trained on her head. “Wha… hey, hey!” He raises his hands in surrender as Dean inches closer. 

It’s obvious. They’re too scared to provide him much help. He’ll figure out where he’s at soon enough. He just has to keep moving. “Where's the road?!”

Summoning up enough courage to speak, the man points south. “Few miles, that way.”

Keeping his gun trained on the couple, Dean picks up one of their backpacks from the ground and runs off without saying another word. He hopes it has food and water inside. He’s not exactly sure how much time has passed since he stepped into the portal and then back out. All he knows is that, he’s weak; too weak to survive out here very long on his own. 

Pain burns throughout his entire body. His arm had began to throb as soon as his feet touched the ground. Dean has to find Benny’s bones and release him or they are both going to end up dead. He doesn’t have time to think about contacting Sam. He can’t allow himself think about Cas. So, he pushes forward towards the road and prays that someone will pick his sorry ass up along the way.

***

The trip from Maine to Louisiana is arduous at best. Two days and a half dozen locals later, Dean finds himself on the outskirts of town saddled up to the counter at a truckstop diner, nose deep in the blackest coffee he’s had in a while. The food smells amazing but his funds are limited. Once he gets further south, he’ll put out a few applications for credit cards under fake names; maybe scrounge up a driver’s license. For now... he’s left clutching his arm, biting back the pain of Benny literally crawling underneath his skin and swallowing back the angry lump in his throat that is Cas. 

Dean is more than thankful when an older trucker approaches him and offers him a ride. It turns out, the hunter is a ear spitting image of the old man’s grandson… and pops just couldn’t leave him sitting back there with no place to go. Dean offers thanks to kismet as he presses his face to the cold pane of his window. He doesn’t mean to fall asleep but after so many days on the road, the low hum of the road beneath the semi’s wheels proves to work better than any sedative he’s ever taken. 

When they hit Arkansas, Dean’s pretty sure the trucker is a shake, rattle and roll away from dropping him off at the nearest mental hospital. He knows he’s twitchy and damn if he isn’t trying to act like he’s always seconds away from another attack. But, he can’t shake the tendrils of fear that have coiled around every part of him. Dean ducks out on the guy at a Flying J and flags down a farmer and his wife heading back home from a shopping day in the city. They get him a few miles away from the depths of the bayou that Benny had insisted he find. 

The Louisiana heat is heavy on his lungs as he trudges along. The pain in his arm flares up as he gets closer. It’s definitely the right spot. Dean can feel it in his bones. The name Lafitte carved into an old stone pillar confirms it. That was Benny’s surname. Ducking through a rotting bit of fencework, he searches the landscape for the old windmill the vampire had told him about. 

Once he finds it, Dean retrieves a shovel. He stumbles and clutches his arm as he approaches what he believes to be Benny’s grave marker. Gasping, he tells the night. “This better be you, you son of a bitch.” A dig that would normally take him little over an hour stretches into two before he’s throwing the shovel down. Dean hoists himself up to the edge of the grave. He gulps down a few breaths of air before standing up. “Alright.”

Benny’s bones look ancient in the moonlight. He really hopes this fucking works. “Hold on, you bastard.” Rolling up his sleeve, Dean gasps as his skin glows red and begins to pulse. “Hold on!” He slices into his arm with a barely bitten back cry of pain. “Anima corpori…” Dean holds his arm over the grave and allows the red under his skin to drip down onto the bones. “Fuerit corpus... totem resurgent.”

Groaning in pain as light bursts and glows over the bones then fades, Dean sags to the ground. “Wow…” He’s rolling his sleeve back down over the self-inflicted wound gingerly, when something appears behind him. God, he hopes it’s Benny. “That was fast.”

“No thanks to you. The hell took you so long?”

Smiling to hold back the tears, Dean gets back up to his feet still clutching his arm. It’s Benny, alright. “You’re welcome.” Behind him, Benny cracks his neck. “Everything working?” Dean asks quietly. 

“Good enough.” Benny opens his mouth wide and allows his teeth descend then retract as he closes his mouth. He’s regarding the hunter with trepidation in his eyes. “Where’s the angel?” 

Anger boils up in Dean’s gut, he can’t help it. It wasn’t supposed to go down like this. It wasn’t. Cas was supposed to be there with them, damn it. “He didn’t make it…”

Eyes sliding shut in sorrow, Benny grunts out an acknowledgement before dragging Dean into his arms with a solid hug. They stand there graveside until the hunter’s angry cries fade away into silence. Fingers dug into Benny’s arms like claws, Dean clings to him until everything feels numb. 

The chill of the night has seeped into his skin and wrapped itself around him like a cocoon. Even the gentle kisses that Benny is peppering over his lips don’t make him feel a damn thing. And finally, the vampire breaks the silence with a wary question. “...you’re off to find Sam now, ain’t you?” 

Dean nods against his chest before stepping back to meet Benny’s eyes. He can’t handle the pain he sees in them; especially knowing that it is all his fault. Only thing is, how the hell does he just tell Benny that he can’t even look at his face without thinking about Cas. That he can’t hack being around him… not yet. 

Benny runs a thumb over Dean’s now damp cheek with a heavy sigh. “Then this is goodbye.”

Sniffing loudly, Dean ducks his head in a barely visible nod. It figures that Benny would someone understand how he was feeling without him actually explaining it. Asshole was always sly like that. “Keep your nose clean, Benny. You hear me?”

The vampire steps up and into Dean’s space once again. He grips the hunter’s right hand with a hearty shake before embracing him. “We made it, brother. I can't believe it.” Benny loathes to omit Cas from it, but there’s little either of them can do about that now. 

Dean lets out a sardonic laugh and returns the hug slowly; not wanting to ever let Benny go but knowing that neither of them will survive if he doesn’t. “You and me both.”

***

Dean stays in Louisiana just long enough to get a line of credit opened and a decently forged driver’s license. He rents the least obnoxious car he can find and then he high tails it for Montana. It isn’t a quick jaunt and after his trip from Maine down to Louisiana, Dean wants nothing more than to stay in one spot for more than five minutes. But at least this keeps him busy. 

Must to his own surprise, he makes it to Dallas before he’s ready to drop. Curled up in the backseat of his rental, Dean allows sleep to finally wash over him. Ten hours later, he’s woken up by someone knocking on his window. It doesn’t end up being a police officer, but it’s enough to get his adrenaline pumping. He’s back on the road within the hour leaving the concerned tourist that had roused him in the dust.

His luck holds out long enough that he makes it through Kansas and Wyoming without incident. Montana, is an entirely different story. Dean ganks a nest of fledgling vamps in Laurel and another just outside of Anaconda. He’s hunkered down in a rest stop bathroom trying to scrub the blood off of his hands with nothing but lukewarm water when he declares it a lost cause. Hell, his clothes alone are a lot worse for the wear; purgatory hadn’t done them any favors. Dean’s still grousing about the vamp epidemic and how he’s consistently amazed at just how many of the bloodsuckers seem to flock to the God damn state. Billings, Butte, Missoula, Red Lodge; no wonder Rufus had ended up setting up shop there. 

It’s been five days on the road and ten days out of purgatory when he finally makes it back to the cabin in Whitefish. It’s another two before Sam walks in the front door.

***

The cabin looks like it hadn’t been touched in months when he arrived. Dust was had settled over everything. What little food they’d left when they’d set out to gank Dick Roman has rotted away to nothing. He cleans up what he can and picks up a few supplies from town. Without Sam there or any idea if he was even still alive, there was next to no reason to stay.

At first, Dean is sure that it has to be a monster when he hears it; movement out in the living room. So, when his baby brother just waltzes right in the front door, Dean does what instinct tells him to and attacks. Pushing Sam to the ground, he douses him in holy water. “What the… I’m not a demon!” Dean pours a bottle of Borax over the patches of exposed skin that he can find. “Or a Leviathan. What?!” The protests don’t stop him. Dean grabs his arm and slices into it with a knife.

Satisfied as Sam gasps in pain and scrambles away, Dean stands up. “Or a shifter. Good. My turn. Come on. Let’s go.”

“I don't need to. I know it's you.”

Yeah, that was real a real fucking safe assumption. Frustrated, Dean splashes himself with holy water and Borax. “Damn it, Sammy!” He holds out the knife to his brother, who has now stood up. “Come on!”

“No! Dean, can I just say hello?”

Rolling his eyes and then rolling up his sleeve, Dean runs the blade across his barely healed arm and shows the blood seeping out to Sam. “All right.” Despite everything, he can’t help but smile as he binds his wound. “Well... let's do this.”

The intensity of the greeting has left Sam slightly taken aback. “I don't know whether to give you a hug or take a shower.”

The laughter that bubbles out of Dean’s throat is the happiest sound he’s made since purgatory. “Come here.” He holds out his arms. When Sam is finally in his arms, he lets out a sigh of relief. After so many of his brother’s numbers had ended up disconnected, Dean had began to assume the worst. .

“Dude. You're... freakin' alive.” Dean watches his brother step away and bury his hands in his hair. It’s an obvious tell if there ever was one, he realizes. The kid’s hiding something. But he’s just got back, he can’t take another pile of shit landing on his lap; so, he just watches. “I mean, what the hell happened?” Sam asks.

“Well, I guess standing too close to exploding Dick sends your ass straight to purgatory.” The dick jokes have always deterred whatever roller coaster of getting in touch with your feelings that his little brother sends his way. Therefore, it’s as good of a shot at keeping things light hearted as any. Deep down, Dean simply knows now that he’s seen Sam; he doesn’t want to know what is obviously niggling at him… already. That and there’s of few secrets of his own that he’s not exactly ready to bare his soul on. Not yet.

“You were in purgatory? For the whole year?!”

Strangely enough, it doesn’t feel like it’s been a year. If it weren’t for the constant reminders from calendars, newspapers and the like, it would be easy enough to believe that only a couple of months had passed. “Yeah, time flies when you're running for your life.”

Flinching, Sam ducks his head. “Well, how'd you get out?”

I made another deal; only this one didn’t land me in hell. “I guess whoever built that box didn't want me in there any more than I did.”

“What does that mean?”

What does it matter? Couldn’t his brother just be happy that he had somehow found a way to come back? “I'm here, okay?”

“What about Cas? Was he there?”

Son of a bitch. Leave it to Sammy to be so god damn intuitive. Dean turns away and takes a few steps. Shoulders slumped, he admits in a weak voice. “Yeah, Cas didn’t make it.”

“And what exactly does that mean?”

He can’t help but notice the accusatory tone of Sam’s question. It’s not like he can just explain in vivid detail what had went down. His brother would never let it go. Especially Benny. Failing Cas was a big enough sin, but shacking up with a vamp? There was a single path to redemption in Sammy’s eyes on that one; at the end of a blade. “Something happened to him down there. Things got pretty hairy towards the end, and he... just let go.”

“So Cas is dead? You saw him die?”

No, but the last thing I saw was the Leviathan preparing to swarm him. “I saw enough.”

“So, then what, you're not sure?”

No, he’s not sure and he doesn’t want to be. Voice raised, Dean turns back to face him. “I said I saw enough, Sam.”

“Right. Dean, I'm sorry.” 

Sam moves in for another hug, But Dean dodges him with a noncommittal grunt. “Me too.” He walks over to the refrigerator and pulls out two beers. He’d grabbed the sixer more out of remembered habit than the urge to drink. The first few weeks in purgatory had been hell. Dean had spent entire nights curled into the shadows in a cold sweat, swallowing back bile and praying the trembling would stop. “So you…” Dean jumps at the chance to change the subject. “ I can't believe you're actually here.” He’d honestly thought Sam might’ve died at the hands of a Leviathan or worse after Dick had exploded. “You know that half your numbers are out of service? Felt like I was leaving messages in the wind.” 

Dean settles down at the table and places a beer down for his brother. Sam, however, remains standing. “Yeah, I, I, I… didn't get your messages.”

Obviously. “How come?”

“Probably because I ditched the phones.”

Had the remaining Leviathan moved against him? Dean could easily imagine the bastards putting yet another price on his head; worse this time because big daddy had gone and gotten himself ganked. “Because...?”

“I guess, um... I guess something happened to me this year, too.” Sam shrugs and avoids Dean’s questioning gaze. Shrugging, he sighs and then seems to decides to lay it out short and sweet. “I don't hunt anymore.” The smile he offers Dean is forced but it is not fake.

Sammy not hunting. Hil-freaking-larious. Even Dean had to admit that his kid brother had become a hell of a hunter over the years. “Yeah. And Sasha Grey's gone legit.” His brother exhales at that. Dean can’t imagine what that would even mean. What shit wasn’t Sammy telling him? “What?”

“Nothing. Um, she did a Soderbergh movie.”

He couldn’t be serious. “What?”

“She did a Soderbergh…”

“No. You, Sam.” Dean’s chest suddenly feels tight, too tight. “You quit?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I… you were gone, Dean. Cas was gone, Bobby was dead. I mean, Crowley even shipped off Kevin and Meg to parts unknown.”

All those nights. Every time he’d looked up at the starless black skies and thought of Sam. How many times had he nearly died trying to reach the portal? ...Cas. “So you just turned tail on the family business.”

“Nothing says family quite like the whole family being dead.”

“I wasn't dead.” Dean stands and begins pacing around Sam; his anger evident in his posture. “In fact, I was knee-deep in God's armpit killing monsters, which, I thought, is what we actually do!”

“Yes, Dean. And far as I knew, what we do is the thing that got every single member of my family killed. I had no one…” Sam swallows loudly to keep his voice from breaking. “No one. And for the first time in my life, I was completely alone. And, honestly, I didn't exactly have a roadmap. So, yeah, I fixed up the Impala, and I just... drove.”

“After you looked for me.” Dean narrows his eyes at his brother. The silence speaks multitudes. “Did you look for me, Sam?” That’s what he’d thought. He looks away. “Good. That's good.” Grabbing the back of one of the kitchen chairs, Dean throws it halfway across the cabin with an angry grunt. “Now, we... we... always told each other not to look for each other. That's smart. Good for you.” He’s seconds away from hurtling his bottle of beer at his brother’s face.. “Of course, we always ignored that because of our deep, abiding love for each other, but not this time, right, Sammy?”

“Look, I'm still the same guy, Dean.”

“Well, bully for you.” He allows Benny’s influence to wash over him. Benny, who he’d left for… this? “I'm not.” Dean’s out the door before Sam can even say another word.


	9. Chapter 9

As pissed as Dean is about Sam bailing on him, he’s more pissed about the fact that he’d all but left Kevin to the wolves. Deep down he blames himself for not being able to get his ass out of purgatory sooner. If only, him and Cas had ran when Dick started sending off waves of energy. Then he thinks about how if that’d happened, neither of them would’ve met up with Benny; the vampire would still be roaming purgatory. Dean’s not so sure that’s even the better option anymore. Cas, Benny, Sam, Kevin; it’s too much, he needs to focus on the job, on just Kevin, to keep his mind busy.

Gathering weapons together, him and his brother stow them in the trunk of the Impala. Sam barely spares Dean’s latest addition the the arsenal a glance. He’s obviously timid about breaching the topic of the last year after their argument last night. “Hey!” Instead, he presents a peace offering. Sam tosses him the keys with a shy smile.. 

Dean looks her over. All in all, Baby seems to be doing pretty good. “Well... no visible signs of douchery, I'll give you that.” They slide into the front seat; settling in so easily that the nostalgia of it all causes Dean’s ears to ring. He inhales sharply trying to push past it only to catch a scent; something he hadn’t done since his first night landing topside. Glancing over his shoulder at the back seat, Dean squints his eyes. “Smell like dog to you?”

Sam sniffs the air. “In the car?” He gives Dean an incredulous look as if to say that there was no way that his brother could smell… that.

“You tell me.” Dean watches his brother shrug off the topic. “Hmm?” He does pursue the topic. It’s better for his own mental health and maybe Sammy’s ass to just let it go until they get some shit figured out about Kevin.

***

They’re a good day’s worth of driving out of Whitefish when they finally stop at a hotel. Sam is unloading the car and Dean has saddled up next to a vending machine. His attention is jumping from one snack to the other. It’s such an overwhelming amount of choice, and sugar, and salt and… it’s a huge part of everything he’d missed while in purgatory. He’s so enraptured by it that he doesn’t notice Sam stop and stare at him for a few moments before heading to their room.

Across the parking lot, the sound of two little boys playing finally draws Dean’s attention away from the vending machine. They are bickering back and forth about having shot one another with their toy guns and who exactly should be dead and who shouldn’t. He knows it’s creepy to stare, but Dean can’t find it in himself to stop. Besides, in his mind, he’s is anywhere but standing next to that vending machine.

Instead, he is back in purgatory’s forest. He’s chasing a monster through the trees only to lose the trail and stop. There’s rustling and he bolts after the creature as it flees from the nearby bushes. It stops suddenly. Dean doesn’t hesitate as he charges up behind it. The monster, turns on him with a yell and attacks. The hunter defends himself; knocking the creature’s scythe out of his hand. Shoving it up against the tree, Dean presses a knife to its throat. Teeth descend inside the monster’s snarling mouth. It’s a vampire. “Take a breath. Calm down.” He’s trying for rationality rather than just decapitating the thing. “Where's the angel?”

“You're him! The human!” It cries out but doesn’t answer.

“Where's. The. Angel?” Dean yells.

“I don't know.”

“Hmm.” Unfuckinglikely. Dean withdraws the knife from the vampire’s neck only to plunge it through his arm; pinning him to the tree. He leans over and retrieves its scythe and without a moments pause, beheads it.

Before the vampire’s head has even completed its fall, a second vampire is tackling Dean to the ground and knocking his newly procured weapon from his hands. The hunter reaches for the scythe unsuccessfully. The second vampire has him pinned to the ground. Jutting his chin out, Dean struggles against his hold; sure of his imminent death. When another vampire enters the scene, he’s sure of his end and is thankful Sam wasn’t there to witness it. Only, the third vampire doesn’t attack him. Instead, it flings itself at the second one and decapitates it swiftly. It turns on Dean then, its teeth fully descended. And if the hunter didn’t know any better, he could have sworn the damn thing smiles at him.

The blaring of a car horn draws Dean out of his memory with a start. Glancing around, he finds that he’s still standing in front of the vending machine; the boys he had been watching are on the other side of the playground. The moment is gone. He sighs and punches his selection into the machine. Chips and candy in hand, Dean shuffles off to their room to join up with Sam.

***

They don’t make it half a day without fighting. Not all that surprising considering their past. It’s just so beyond Dean’s comprehension that Sam just stopped after him and Cas sacrificed everything; stopped hunting, stopped looking for them, stopped saving people. And for what? A woman? Hell, Dean could’ve stayed in purgatory forever on the run with Benny and Cas by his side if he’d known he was coming back to… nothing. He’d found something with them. But it hadn’t stopped him from coming back to Sam. Apparently, it didn’t work the same for his brother.

Perched on the edge of one of the beds, Sam is rambling on again; trying to help Dean understand. “Listen, I know this is gonna sound crazy to you. I don't even necessarily need you to understand. But...you need to know. I didn't just drop out, Dean. I found something. Something I've... never had all my life.

Dean has settled on the floor and is pressing his shoulders into the edges of the bed’s mattress, when he replies. “Yeah, what was her name?” The dull pain the mattress edge provides is a welcome distraction to the coiled mess that Sam’s words are inciting in his chest and gut.

“Amelia.”

“So, what, you, uh, you dropped your peanut butter in her chocolate? How'd it happen?” His mouth twitches as Benny’s filters through his thoughts. Under other circumstances, Dean would be amused in the fact that he was starting to sound like the smart ass vamp. God help him, he is trying to understand where Sam’s coming from. He is. It’s just that… he can’t.

“I hit a dog.”

Snapping his fingers, Dean turns to look at him pointing. “I knew I smelled dog!” It was so much easier to dwell on the petty shit rather than the big painful picture.

“And I knew you'd throw a bitch fit.”

Bitch, my ass. Sammy knew that was one of the rules. “Hey, the rules are simple, Sam. You don't take a joint from a guy named Don, and there's no dogs in the car!”

“All right, what about you?”

No, they weren’t turning this conversation back onto him. No fucking way. “What about me?”

“Look at you. You've still got that look. You're shaky. You're on edge. What was it like?”

 

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you.” Damn it, he wanted to tell him. The longer he stayed in one spot, the more it felt like this was a dream. If he talked about purgatory, maybe he wouldn’t feel like he was a ghost in his own life.

“Try me.”

Why not, maybe it’d help get Sammy’s head on straight too? “It was bloody. Messy.” He fidgets with the material of his jeans; their newness causing the skin beneath them to itch. “Thirty-one flavors of bottom-dwelling nasties.” And it is not even an exaggeration. “Hell, most days felt like 360-degree combat. But there was something about being there.” Dean remembers standing over the two slain vampires facing down the third. “It felt pure.”

He also remembers how fast his heart was racing when the third vampire, Benny, had tilted his head back and let his teeth retract. “What, no thanks for saving your hide?” He’d said.

And Dean had retorted with the ever so gracious offer of not shoving the scythe up the vamp’s ass. And Benny, had smiled and hummed at him. “Awful strange way to punch your meal ticket, friend. I got something you need. A way out.” The revelation that there was a way out of purgatory had seemed too good to be true at first. He’d said as much starting out.

“There is if you're human. God has made it so. At least, that's the rumor.”

“Bull.”

The vampire leered at him; shrugging his wide shoulders. “Suit yourself. Maybe you've gone native. Maybe you like being man meat for every Tom, Dick, and Harry.”

“Prove it.” Dean had accepted his fate. And in all honesty, eternity here was a far cry better than the one he’d been doomed to in hell. 

“Nah. You're either in or you're out.”

Cocky son of a bitch. “So you just want to guide me out of Purgatory out of the goodness of your undead heart?”

“More or less.”

More. Definitely more. There was always a deal to be had by these types. “What's in it for you?”

“I'm hopping a ride.”

And that meant what exactly? “What?” Dean sidestepped; bringing himself that much closer to a clearer path of escape. 

“It's a human portal, jackass. Only humans can pass through. I show you the door, you hump my soul to the other side.”

That’s it? Why would a vamp even be willing to make a deal like that? He had to know Dean would bail on his end of things once he made it home. “So you're looking for a soul train.”

“Sure. If that's what you're into.”

Dean had pursed his lips to force back the smile that had started to spread across his lips. “And how do I know this isn't a set-up? How do I know I ain't gonna end up like your friend over there?”

“He was my friend. Now you are. First rule of Purgatory, kid. You can't trust nobody.”

Weirdest bloodsucker, Dean had met in a while; he had to admit. Most here simply attacked no questions asked. “You just asked me to trust you.”

“You see? You're getting it now.”

Words spoken like a hunter, Dean had thought at the time. “Hmm. First we find the angel.”

“Mmm, three's a crowd, chief.”

“Well, hey. Either you're in or you're out.”

Dean shakes his thoughts clear of the memories. He avoids Sam’s worried looks all the way to his pillow.

***

Once they actually delve into the job, they find Kevin’s ex-girlfriend with little to no trouble. Only, her interest seemed to have dropped as soon as he’d failed to take his SATs and go to Princeton. The complete lack of loyalty and support turns Dean’s stomach. Him and Sam had split up after that; scouring the campus for any sign of the prophet. A few hours later, they meet up at a campus food court.

“Don't judge me. I got bupkis.” Dean spouts off before he’s even fully seated across from Sam.

“Well…” Anything he’s about to say is cut short by a waitress placing a plate of food in front of him. Sam smiles up at her. “Ah, thank you.” When she leaves, he pushes it over to Dean.

“Sweet mother of God. It's for me? Seriously?” The look he gives Sam is akin to that of a puppy dog. He doesn’t hesitate for a second before digging in. It’s clearly an apology, one that he’s going to take without even a second thought. The damn burger was frickin’ glorious; thick juicy meat covered in cheese, bacon and grease. Dean has to bite back a moan as he lifts it to his mouth.

“Check this out. So, I went through campus security archives around the time Kevin should have been here.” Sam grins as Dean takes a huge bite out of the burger. “Anyone look familiar?” He turns the laptop towards Dean, who is chewing with his eyes closed. The laptop shows security footage of Kevin wearing a baseball cap. “Dude. It's a burger.”

“It's a treasure!” Dean counters before glancing at the screen. “Alright, so, what, Kevin comes all the way to campus and doesn't see his girlfriend?”

“I don't know... but I went to the computer lab and found the computer he was on.”

And? Spit it out, Sammy. This tech stuff is your deal. “And?”

“And I found the website he was visiting, found his account username, hacked in to the website, found when else this username logged in, and then I reverse-tracked the IP address back to the original user, Kevin, who has apparently been using the same wireless router for the past two months.”

“That is spectacular work. Any chance I can get that in English?”

“Yeah. I think he's in Iowa… at a coffee shop.” Sam shows Dean the laptop again; this time with a map on the screen.


	10. Chapter 10

Dean throws himself into the job. It’s enough to keep him sane for now and to keep his mind busy; stave off the influx of memories that he’s not ready to admit are all that he has left. They find Kevin in the end, Crowley had worked him over something fierce. It pisses Dean off all over again. They should have been there. This kid should never have been left in the hands of a God damn demon. And Sam? Sam continues to apologize and trying to explain. He’d like to give him a piece of his mind. It won’t help the kid’s any, but it’d make Dean feel a hell of a lot better. 

Stewing in his thoughts, Dean’s gassing up the Impala when his phone rings. “Hello?” A voice purrs to life, or rather un-life, on the other end of the line. Shit, it’s Benny. Dean doesn’t dare glance over at Sam; that’s an obvious tell if he’s ever seen one. “Wrong number.” He cuts the vampire off and hangs up. Only then does he turn to his brother. “Automated jackass. All right, anybody want anything?” Any fight that had been in him was drained at the sound of Benny’s voice; he’d sounded so distant and lost; nothing like the vampire he’d survived purgatory with. Something was wrong.

“I'm good.” Sam actually smiles at Dean. He probably thinks this is about the junk food inside just waiting to be bought. Any other day? Maybe.

Turning to look back at Kevin, Dean raises an eyebrow. When there’s no response, Dean simply looks back at Sam. He doesn’t have the time or the temperament for this shit. He gets the kid is hurting, but what the hell is he supposed to do about it for him?

“Kevin? How you holding up?” And there it is, Sammy’s sharing and caring voice.

The prophet’s voice is cold and sharp when he shoots back an answer. “Awesome. The King of Hell just snapped my girlfriend's neck. How about you?”

Dean gives Sam and imploring look only to be met with wide doe eyes. Fucking figures that the only dude he’ll psychoanalyze is his own brother. Huffing out a frustrated breath at his brother, Dean turns to Kevin and speaks. “All right, listen to me. I'm sorry about your girlfriend, okay? I am.” It’s not a lie and he’s really trying to not be a dick. “But the sooner you get this, the better. You're in it now, whether you like it or not. That means you do what you got to do.” His words garner next to no response. Whatever. “ I'm hitting the head.”

Ducking out of the car, he heads towards the men’s room. Once he is out of their sight, he stops and pulls out his phone. It’s only a matter of seconds before Benny’s voice drawls out over the line. “There he is.”

God. If he closes his eyes, he can almost feel Benny there beside him; leaning against his shoulder. “How did you get a phone?” Dean doesn’t dare betray himself; his feelings. So, he zeroes in on what he knows will distract the vampire… the inevitable changes since he was last topside.

“Would you believe they sell these things in convenience stores now?” He chuckles low and deep over the phone line. Dean shivers at the sound. “A lot's changed in 50 years.”

“Must be a hell of a lot to take in.” The hunter replies softly finally allowing his exterior to break; empathy getting the better of him. 

“Mostly it's the choices, you know? So many choices.”

Choices. Yeah, he got that. Benny sounds so lost. It breaks Dean’s heart. He wishes he could be everywhere and nowhere all at once. Here for Kevin and Sam because it’s beyond obvious that they need guidance and… there because Benny needs someone. And Dean? Dean needs Cas and… Cas is gone. “Yeah, I hear that.” Silence stretches out between them; only the sound of the hunter’s breathing floating over the phone line. “Listen, Benny, not to beat a dead horse. What we did down there is what we had to do. Now, I don't regret it for a second. But... you know, maybe until we both adjust, it's best we don't talk for a while.”

“And there it is.”

Regret explodes in Dean’s chest at Benny’s words. He doesn’t want to be that guy. He really doesn’t. But he’s backed into a corner and forced to decide between the big bad nasties trying to unleash the fury of hell via one Kevin Tran and being a shoulder and a rock for… Dean can’t even bring himself to finish the thought. “One day at a time, just like we talked about, right?” He offers as a balm. He knows it’s not worth spit to say, but he has to say something.

“I think you had it right, bud.” 

Benny’s voice curls into Dean’s ear. It only causes the loneliness stirring in his gut to worsen. “What's that?”

“Purgatory was pure.” The vampire explains. “I'm kind of wishing I had appreciated it more. You know? Like you.”

It’s unclear whether or not Benny means he’d appreciated purgatory more like Dean had or if he means he wishes he’d appreciated the hunter more. The subject isn’t exactly one he can address. After a while, Sam will come looking for him. “Listen, you got an emergency, you call me, you understand?” He wishes that he could pick up the phone any time and just chat away the hours with Benny. He really does. Dean misses the vampire to an extent that actually scares himself. And more than anything, he wants to be there by his side showing him the world and how much it’s changed.

“I hear you. You keep your nose clean, too, brother.”

“Yeah.” Dean keeps his phone pressed tight against his ear until Benny disconnects on the other end. “...yeah.” He adds in a whisper before heading into the gas station. Any hunger he’d felt earlier has completely disappeared but Sam, maybe not Kevin, but Sam would notice and question him coming back empty handed. 

***

Kevin’s mother in tow, the end up tracking Crowley’s demon tablet to a shady as all get out auction. Dean doesn’t miss the look Sam gives him when security forces to empty his pockets of all weapons; every last knife, skiv, shotgun and ligature. He also doesn’t miss the speculative and considering gaze Mrs. Tran lays on him either. As mothers go, she ain’t bad… if not a little scary. Smirking at her and her son, Dean leers and wanders into the crowd to mingle; hoping to find the tablet and get the hell out of dodge.

A few minutes later a young man in a fast food employee uniform approaches him. As strange things went, it was one of the stranger things to happen to them today. “Dean Winchester?”

It’s never bode well when someone knows him on sight or reputation alone. Well, not for the monsters anyway. That and, Cas and Benny aside, hooking up always seemed to end badly for himself. Which side of the spectrum was this guy, anyway? He wasn’t exactly Dean’s type; but there was a time when he hadn’t been exactly picky about his bed partners. “Do I know you?

“Uh, no, but, uh, I knew Castiel.”

The tense used is damning. The guy either knows Cas didn’t make it out or was a member of the junkless brigade and had already written him off; probably the latter considering his general appearance. “You're an angel?” Pulling his best poker face, Dean smirks down at the guy’s clothing.

Stuttering, the guy replies. “This... this was the nearest vessel on short notice. We don't usually come to things like this, but, uh…”

Dean licks his lips and nods towards the partially covered tablet. “You're chasing the magic rock?”

“We protect the word of God.”

And if that tone didn’t just sound exactly like Cas when they’d first met, he doesn’t know what does. It’s full of faith and confidence. Dean was willing to bet that this angel hadn’t even considered the fact that his own side could very well lose. “Well, awesome job so far, uh…” He leans in and reads the angel’s name tag. “Alfie.”

“Actually, my name is Samandiriel.”

Hiding his reaction with a smirk, Dean lets the name roll through his thoughts. Samandiriel. Was he a seraph like Cas? Or something worse like Michael or Raphael? “Let's just stick with Alfie.”

“I wanted to ask you about Castiel. What happened to him?” 

Wow, this guy didn’t pull any punches. Dean couldn’t hide his reaction this time. He’d assumed the angel already knew of Cas’ fate. Pinching a face at Samandiriel, he shifts uncomfortably on his feet. “Well, me and Cas. We, uh… we iced Dick Roman and got a one-way rocket ride to Purgatory for our trouble.”

A spark of hope glimmers in the angel’s eyes. I makes Dean feel like vomiting. “But you escaped. Did... did Castiel?” Hoping his silence is enough, the hunter doesn’t respond. Samandiriel bows his head slightly at the information. He gives Dean a considering look before adding. “You know, there are some in Heaven who still believe, despite his mistakes, that Castiel's heart was always in the right place.”

“Are you one of them?” And that there was what mattered. Junkless dick, ally or neutral Swiss?

“I think too much heart was always Castiel's problem.” Samandiriel offers softly before walking away. As much as he finds himself agreeing with the statement, it clarifies nothing and Dean is left regarding the damn angel with wariness and curiosity; never a good mix.

If it was an omen of any sort on how the day was going to play out, it ends up being a bad one. They screw the pooch and bad. Mrs. Tran sells her soul for her son’s freedom and the demon tablet after Greed declares them a matching set; only to have Crowley possess her before the deed is paid in full. The King of Hell makes off with the tablet; prophet-less. And the Trans duck out on them right under their god forsaken noses. All in all, they are back to square one and Dean ain’t at all happy about it.


	11. Chapter 11

Him and Sammy are bickering over the wild goose chase Kevin’s dragging them on when his phone rings. Knowing the prophet or his mom’s proclivities, Dean half expects it to finally be one of them. Well, if Mrs. Tran had gotten any better since the auction house. Then again, the way the kid saw things… he’d seen Dean about to murder his mother. If he was in Kevin’s spot, they are the last ones he’d reach out to.

It’s not Kevin… and it’s not his mother either. It’s Benny. Covering the mouthpiece, Dean catches Sam’s eyes and nods towards the door. “Uh, hang on. There's not enough bars.” Before his little brother has a chance to object, Dean slinks outside; closing the door behind himself. “Benny?!”

“Hey, Dean. You, um... you got a minute?” Something’s wrong; worse than before. This isn’t the social call last time was. “Afraid I messed up, buddy.”

A lump forming in his throat, Dean immediately assumes the worst. Closing his eyes, he imagines a room full of drained corpses at the vampire’s feet. “What did you do?”

“No, man, not like that.” Benny assures him weakly.

Dean tries to ignore how badly his hands are shaking. He can feel Sam watching him from their room. Trying to shrug it off, he listens to Benny explain the mess he’s gotten himself into. “I'm sorry. You took on how many? Are you crazy?” The guy hasn’t came out and actually asked for anything, for help, but Dean can sense it coming.

“Hey.” The usual indignant tone in Benny’s voice isn’t present. That’s when it hits Dean that maybe the vampire’s actually gotten himself in a pretty bad mess. “See, the thing is, my legs, they ain't working so good. There's, uh... a fuel barge not too far from here. I'm pretty sure I can make it at a slow crawl. I was kind of hoping maybe I could ask you for one more favor?”

He doesn’t even have to ask. Dean would have volunteered. 

***

“What exactly is that supposed to mean, you've got to go?!”

Sam’s pretty pissed, Dean will give him that. What he doesn’t understand is why. It’s not like the guy hadn’t spent the last year playing house while Dean had fought his way out of purgatory for Christ’s sake. “Which words are giving you trouble?”

“We're on the case, remember, Dean? The... the Winchester holy grail, shut the gates of hell forever case?!”

Dead horse. Besides, it wasn’t like they never ever let another case interrupt the really big ones before. Seriously, why was Sam making such a big deal out of this?! “Sure are. But in order to close the Gates of Hell, we need our Prophet, am I right?” Dean shoves supplies into his duffel bag. “So, step one: find Kevin Tran. Well, he ain't here. But he wanted us to be, which means we're probably as far away from him as he could possibly put us.” Shouldering his duffel, Dean turns to Sam and continues. “So, step two: find Kevin Tran. You mind if I take the Toblerone?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. He almost makes it to the Impala. 

“Wait. Dean, seriously?”

“Hey, the trail is dead, but the room is paid for. You got some research to do, and I got some personal crap I got to take care of. That's all.” Perhaps, a different approach will work. Something’s got to appeal to Sammy.

“What does that mean… personal?”

For crying out loud! “Did you have a stroke? Vocabulary? Personal, as in my own grown-up personal, I don't know, crap.”

“Damn it, De…”

“What, Sam? Last I counted, you took a year off from the job. I need a day!” And that does it. Sam backs off. Sure, he’s pissed as all get out… but he gets out of Dean’s way and lets him leave. 

***

The drive is hell. Dean can’t hold off the flood of memories anymore. He replays nights by the campfire. He replays the cave. He replays countless times they’d all saved each other’s asses. By the time he gets to his destination, it’s daylight and his mind is awash with images of himself, Benny and Cas… and Benny’s whistle is the only thing Dean can hear outside of the pounding in his ears.

Dean pulls up next to a pickup truck. He’s running on auto-pilot as he looks into the cabin of the truck and then opens the covered truck bed; trying to find some sign that the vehicle is Benny’s and he’s in the right spot. He’s almost ready to give up and move on to the next dock when he opens a small ice chest and finds it full of blood bags. Dean shakes his head but can’t hold back the smile that spreads across his face. The vamp was true to his word; he drank blood but he didn’t drink humans. He snags the ice chest and Benny’s duffel bag before closing the truck bed. 

The fuel barge isn’t exactly Dean’s ideal location to go wandering into. It’s too enclosed. There’s not a clear route of escape. But, it is safe, it is protection… it also means that Benny’s in rough shape if he essentially drug himself to the closest equivalent to a cave. “Benny!” He yells as he walks down a flight of stairs and into the dark belly of the boat. It doesn’t take long to find his vampire. 

Dropping to his knees beside him; taking in the damage with a frown on his face. “Benny? You’re not lookin' good.”

“Up yours.” Benny chuckles from where he’s leaning heavily against the wall. 

Every molecule in Dean’s body wants to lean in and kiss him, wants to steal the pain away. But purgatory didn’t work like that… and Earth sure in the hell didn’t either. Opening the ice chest, Dean pulls out a bag. Tearing it open, he holds it to Benny’s lip and watches as the red fluid flows over his lips and onto his tongue.

At least a half dozen bags later, Dean drags Benny to a bathroom and leaves him there with a set of fresh clothes. There’s still blood everywhere and wounds worse than anything he’d witnessed on the vamp back in purgatory. He leans against a nearby table and waits as a shower starts in the next room over. The place reeks of petroleum and blood, but the hunter can’t find it in himself to care all that much. Because of his own hang ups, he’d abandoned Benny… left him here to die at the hands of a rather vicious nest. This was all his fault.

He’s still leaning against the table lost in his own thoughts when Benny finally comes out of the bathroom wearing the clean clothes and drying his hair with a towel. Swallowing, Dean looks him up and down. “Wow. You, uh... look okay.” He looks better than okay. Save for being a little pale, you’d never know Benny had all but bled out on the floor of the barge. 

“Getting there…” Benny replies tiredly.

“Dude, you were double-hamstrung.”

“Yeah, well, a little rest, a half a cooler full of AB-negative… Most wounds short of an amputation will mend up... vampirically speaking.”

“Uh-huh.” Dean glowers. His gaze unwavering, he inspects what little he can actually see of Benny before meeting the vampire’s eyes. Benny looks alright, but the hunter just isn’t convinced that everything is perfect in paradise.

Picking up his bag and sliding on his trademark cap, Benny picks up his ice chest. “I'll be 100% before you know it.” He holds out his hand to Dean as if offering to shake it. “Thank you, brother.”

His scowl deepening, Dean takes Benny’s hand and shakes. It’s a far cry from the intense hug he’d been expecting. It’s so far off the reservation for the vampire, in fact, that it sets Dean’s teeth on edge. “Benny, what's going on?”

“Oh, your work here is done, bab… Dean.” Clapping his hand gently against Dean’s face, Benny smiles. “You already saved the day. You know, I got my, uh, deal, and you got... what'd you call it? A family business?”

Dean reaches up and covers the vampire’s hand with his own. “Benny. What's going on?” It doesn’t take a genius to notice the flare of affection in Benny’s eyes when he finally responds. 

“You and that whole friend thing, man.” Benny all but coos at him. “Well, it's good to know you're still dumb as ever.”

“Yeah, well, some things never change.” Smirking, Dean nuzzles into his the hand still pressed to his cheek. “Now, why are you getting into machete fights with your own kind?” It wasn’t like Benny was the first vamp he’d witnessed take a stand against his own, but out and out seeking them out and brawling with them. Not exactly par for the course. Then again, Benny was anything but par for the course… even compared to Lenore.

“Quentin, the one I came for? We were in the same nest. I'm hunting the vampire who turned me.” Benny lets his hand drop from Dean’s face as he speaks. 

It’s clear that he expects no help from the hunter; that he plans to go on this alone. Dean’s having none of it. “Well, now, don't get me wrong. I'm down with the hunting, but, uh... why?

Benny reaches around him to gather his effects off of the table. Amongst the empty blood bags there a stained wallet, a money clip, keys, notebook, and matches. “Kill him before he kills me... again.” The protest building to pour out from Dean’s lips is cut short as Benny picks up the money clip and pockets it. He hadn’t realized, he hadn’t known. Benny offers Dean the notebook. “Quentin and I went way back... one of the old man's favorites, next to me, it turns out.”

Dean flips through the notebook as he listens to Benny’s brief explanation. “Listen to this: Age of Aquarius II, 0800. And then there's some other numbers all crossed out. Some other weird names here, too. The Big Mermaid, Solitaire... it's all crossed out, except this one; the Lucky Myra.”

“Yachts. They’re names of yachts. Lucky Myra.” Benny takes the notebook from Dean and studies it. Age of Aquarius II. Look at this one… Sea You Later,spelled s-e-a.” He doesn’t hide the amused smile spreading across his face. “I mean, come on.” Benny places the notebook back down on the table.

Rolling his eyes at the vampire, Dean snorts. Benny hadn’t been real up on sharing details of his life prior to purgatory; especially the little details. It was becoming clearer to the hunter that the barge, docks, the sea, all of it was part of Benny’s past. Pointing at the notebook, he ignores the vampire’s chiding. “So, then these are launch times. And what... destinations?”

“Mm-hmm. Except none of them ever get there. The Lucky Myra left yesterday afternoon. I guarantee you it's already been hit.”

Now that piqued his interest. This was sounding more and more like a job. “What do you mean, hit?”

“Boarded, burned, and buried at sea. My nest…” Benny spares a glance up at Dean. “Tha… that's how we fed... How we always fed. We kept a tight little fleet, maybe a half-dozen boats. Nothing ostentatious, just pleasure craft. I must have circled the Americas ten times during my tour. A few of us would act as stringers and patrol the harbors, looking for the right-size target… fat, rich yachts going to far-off ports. Take down the boat's name and destination, radio it to the crew in the water. And then we just, uh... let the ocean swallow up all our sins.”

Dean’s full on chuckling before he can finish speaking. “Vampire pirates? That's what you guys are? Vampirates.”

“You know, all the years we ran together, I can't believe nobody ever thought of that.” Benny’s smiling back at the hunter; any tension that had started to blossom as he’d confessed his past has bled away into the night.

“What do you mean? It's like the third thing you say!” 

Flummoxed, Benny shakes his head. “No, it isn't.”

Dean shrugs off the vampire’s bewilderment and starts bouncing ideas off of him. “Alright, so, your mas…” He clears his throat; not quite able to bring himself to associate the likes of a master with the Benny he knows. “Your maker… is set up to feed around here, right?” Dean withdraws some money and a piece of paper from the wallet that was on the table. “Well, what are we looking for?” He shifts and slides the money into his own pocket. 

“Well, he likes to live in style. He usually rents legitimately. Always remote, always coastal.”

Trying not to flinch at the fondness in Benny’s voice, Dean nods as he unfolds the piece of paper he’d retrieved from the wallet. “So an island, maybe?” He flashes the paper at Benny. “You got a cable bill here. Prentiss Island. Heard of it?”

“Oh, yeah.”

***

It’s a strange juxtapose to Dean’s life as a hunter having Benny riding shotgun in the Impala as they barrel towards Prentiss Island. Not to say that he’s not completely thrilled with having one of his two… companions… from purgatory at his side, he is completely fucking thrilled. As much as he loves Sam, he’d missed the two of them terribly once he’d gotten back. “So, if you were your maker's favorite, why did he kill you?” He ventures to ask as they pass by another seaside town.

Benny gives him this long, considering look before he finally owns up and answers. “When you get turned, it's like you're reborn into a vampire nest. Your mast… maker… he or she means everything to you.” There’s a solemnity to his tone that makes Dean realize that Benny’s pretty much just given away what he feels to be a trade secret; something no hunter should ever have confirmed even if they’d already come to the conclusion themselves already. It’s an act of trust on the vampire’s part. That alone is enough for Dean to accept that helping Benny on this hunt is the right thing to do. Benny pauses in his explanation long enough to take a blood bag out of the ice chest situated between them. “I mean, you really start believing he's God. Now, if your.. maker happens to believe the same thing, well…” His voice trails off and he takes a drink from the blood bag.

“I see how that could be a pickle.” It wasn’t exactly unlike any other undead nasty that his family had hunted before. Hell, it wasn’t unlike Cas had been for a while.

“Mmm.” Benny hums in acknowledgement.

Pinching a face, Dean glances between the blood bag and back at Benny’s mouth. “Well, uh…” His attention strays from the road ahead as he watches Benny’s cheeks hollow out around the plastic. “You really have to do that? I mean, right now?” 

Benny gives him a sidelong glance over the bag before he withdraws it from his mouth with a chuckle. “I’m sorry, brother. I'm better, but I'm still on the mend.”

Dean clears his throat and nods; refocusing his attention back on the road. “Right.” And if he shifts in his seat to alleviate the sudden tightness of his jeans, he would like to think Benny would be none the wiser. He’d like to think that… but he knows better.

“Anyway...our father.. he was a jealous god..” This time Dean does flinch. It’s too similar to how Cas spoke of God and it… it hurts. Benny either actually doesn’t notice this or he does and he choses to ignore it. “He kept the family together but kept us apart from the rest of the world, always at sea. I always did what was best for the nest… until” The vampire glances at Dean only to drop his gaze to his own lap. “Until I met her. Andrea. Andrea Kormos. Beautiful. I mean, words don't even cut it, you know? Greek, heiress.”

Biting his bottom lip, Dean can’t help but find Benny’s shyness about a past lover endearing. “Come on.”

Ignoring the hunter’s chiding tone, Benny continues. “She was sailing a 42-foot sloop to the Canary Islands. Now, I should have called her boat's destination in to my crew, but instead, I joined her on it.”

Benny never ceases to amaze him. He’s so completely not the asshole vamp that Dean’s younger self would have assumed him to be. “Seriously? Was Fabio on the cover of that paperback?” Dean laughs but tries to keep his tone friendly; not wanting to offend Benny.

“My life changed when she entered it, Dean. Everything I had been or done up to that point just... seemed to vanish... into what we had become together. I mean... We found it, man.” Benny inhales a deep breath through his nostrils then adds. “Kinda like Cas with you, brother.”

The only thing that keeps Dean from curling in on himself at Benny’s words is the vampire’s reassuring touch as he leans in and strokes the back of his neck with blood warmed fingers. There’s a lapse conversation as Benny and Dean both steady themselves against the memories that haunt them. “Eventually, we settled in Louisiana. And then one night, we were coming home, and the old man... he was just there. Quentin, Sorento, my oldest nestmates. It was only that night I understood what a crime it was to him... me leaving him. They pinned me down, and they beheaded me. The last thing I saw was the old man tearing out Andrea's throat.”

Mouth and throat dry, Dean swallows loudly. It made sense now. This hunt was Benny’s purpose, his focus… his vengeance. Thankful that he’d decided to be at the vampire’s side for it, Dean replies softly in a tone he’d normally reserve for Sam. “Well, that's what payback's all about... am I right?”

Benny lets the question hang in the air as he lifts a hand to point at an upcoming landmark. “Docks are up ahead. Should be able to find a dinghy to use.”

Opting for silence as he pulls into the dock, Dean parks the Impala against the treeline and follows Benny to a row of small motor boats. He barely spares a raised eyebrow when they essentially commit grand theft watercraft. For as much as he and Sam have travelled, Dean can honestly say that he’s not been anywhere like this. The night sky reflects off the black water under the moonlight and everything feels so much older than he’s used to every topside feeling. For all his gut tells him, they could be back in purgatory still searching for Cas. Obviously, that’s not the case… but floating across the water like this with Benny at his side… they very well could’ve been.

When the approach the dock, Dean grabs some rope and jumps to secure the vessel. They retrieve their duffel bags and start heading into the forest. Dean’s texting as he follows behind Benny. “We’re close.” The vampire says and increases his speed until there is nearly a yard between the two of them. Dean has started to tell Sam that he’s out hunting a vampire nest at Prentiss when Benny looks over his shoulder at him and adds “Remind you of anything?”

Dean’s pauses at Benny’s words… because it does, it has been all night. Backspacing until his entire message to Sam is deleted, Dean slides his phone back into his pocket. When Benny reaches into his own bag to withdraw a weapon, Dean follows suit. .

“It's weird being back…” Benny acknowledges as Dean finally falls back in step beside him. “In the world, I mean.” He tosses his duffle bag down next to a tree with an overgrown flowering plant at its base. “Isn't it?”

“Sure as hell is.” Dean admits. The alien-ness he’d been feeling since his return isn’t present when he’s at the vampire’s side. Everything actually feels… right. It doesn’t matter that he’s seconds away from storming a nest without his kid brother. It doesn’t matter that he’s hunting side by side with the very type of creature that he is supposed to hunt. 

“I mean, what do you do with it all? All the..” Benny slumps against the tree above his bag and looks down the bridge of his nose at Dean. “All the everything? Hell, I don't even know if this world is real, if I'm real.”

Flinging his own bag down next to Benny’s, Dean makes a split second decision and presses himself up against the vampire; chest to chest. “Hey, listen to me. I’ve seen what happens down that rabbit hole, okay?” He lets his weapon drop to the ground as he takes Benny’s face between his hands. Pressing their foreheads together, he whispers what he hopes is encouragement. “ We're real. Benny, this is real. It's the only way to play this game, you get me?”

Benny hisses at the contact. “I get ya, brother.”

“Good.” Despite it not being their usual fare, Dean leans forward pressing a demanding kiss on the vampire’s lips. He knew he was playing with fire. If Benny’s true teeth even began to come into play, Dean risks infection. Somehow, he just knows his actions are necessary. 

Back in purgatory, he’d submitted to Benny; in the hierarchy of daily life and sexually. Hell, in a world of monsters… he was the inferior creature. But this world? It was human. Since the first desperate phone call, Dean had known Benny was lost; without a purpose, without a meaning… without a master. He’d just been too chickenshit to step up to the plate. Well, not anymore.

If Benny’s reaction was any indication, Dean had made the right move. Parting his lips to allow the hunter access, Benny whimpers uncharacteristically. Pulling back, Dean whispers. “You okay?”

“Don’t want to curse you with…”

Dean cuts him off with a nip to his bottom lip. “I know.” Sliding one of his hands from Benny’s cheek to his chin, he tilts the vampire’s head to the side. He can’t quite believe that Benny’s being so compliant. Dean licks a wet strip along his jaw and up behind his ear where short tufts of brown and grey hair are sticking haphazardly out of his cap. “...I need to know you’re here with me, Benny. Else, we’re dead before we even walk in the front door.” Dean’s voice is low and soft as he whispers. He sucks at the patch of skin hidden just behind Benny’s earlobe; listening to the shocked, stuttering gasps it draws out of his companion. “Are you with me?”

“...yes, Dean.” Benny answers; his voice lifted in veneration.

“Good.” Dean replies before settling his lips against the already tender flesh behind Benny’s ear and working on it until a bruise appears. He knows it won’t last long considering the assumed physiology of the wearer, but knowing his mark will be on Benny when they enter his former nest together… it goes straight to Dean’s head. It doesn’t matter if it goes unnoticed; the hunter knows it’s there.

They enter the house with little to no fuss. Clearly, they weren’t expecting Benny to survive the attack. The vampire and hunter have made it through an entry hallway and into one of the main room when Benny pauses to stare longingly at a piano. “Time to move, Benny!” Dean whispers gruffly.

“The old man's harpsichord.” 

“Benny!” His voice is as loud as he can get it without speaking or yelling. Hearing footsteps, Dean holds his breath and steps into the shadows. From their depths he can see Benny staring in shock at a framed photograph of a woman sitting on a nearby table. 

The vampire’s voice is full of pain and despair as he cries out. “No. No, no.”

Dean sighs and presses himself harder against the wall; willing himself not to run to Benny’s side. Next thing he sees is the woman from the photograph coming down the stairs. “Benny?” She asks tentatively.”

“Andrea.”

Son of a bitch. If it wouldn’t betray his hiding spot, Dean would be slamming his head into the wall. Apparently, hunting topside with Benny was about as much fun as hunting with Sam. The two of them spent too much time thinking with their heart and not enough time worrying about saving their own asses. At least Sam would have a more objective approach right now. He really should’ve texted him… before this all began… hell, he should’ve brought him with.

As he stands there berating himself for being stupid enough to take this on without his brother, Dean watches with wide eyes as a man walks up behind Benny. Another appears around a corner and a third comes down the stairs behind Andrea. The man behind Benny knocks him to the ground with a single swing to the back of his skull. Biting back the angry sounds threatening to tear past his lips, Dean listens as the vampire is hit again and again. “Idiot.” He whispers when they finally drag him away. Now it was going to be up to him to rescue Benny from these assholes. 

***  
Dean is creeping slowly through the house when his phone buzzes. Pulling it out, he notices it is Sam but doesn’t answer. What good would it do now? He was already elbow deep in shit, after all. “Little busy right now.” He says to himself before sliding the phone back into his pocket. He manages to duck out of sight of a couple vamps at the end of another hallway before he finally makes his way that much closer to Benny. 

Once he’s sure he’s out of range of prying vamp ears, Dean pulls out his phone and dials his brother back. “Okay, what?”

“What?”

“Why. Did. You. Call. Me?”

“Why are you whispering?!”

Seriously, he should’ve just called back after he was finished but his conscience had gotten the better of him. “It's kind of hard to explain right, but I'm sort of in the middle of cleaning out a vampire's nest, and it's sort of gone a little sideways on me.”

“What?!” Great. Now he’s being yelled at. So much for not being found. Dean press the phone to his chest but he can still hear Sam’s angry voice hanging in the air. “Are you an idiot, Dean? You know better than to go into a vamp nest alone.”

Returning the phone back to his ear, Dean shoots back and angry retort. “I'm not alone, damn it. Alright? I'm not alone. I've got backup… a guy who's been tracking the nest for a while.”

“What guy? Garth?”

“What? No. You don't know him. He's a friend.”

“A friend? Dean, you don't have any... all your friends are dead.”

Ouch. That fucking hurt. Dean scowls in the darkness. “That's not what I called to talk about!” When Sam’s voice raises again, he holds the phone to his chest again. With an annoyed sigh, he starts typing furiously into his phone as Sam continues to bitch him out. 

“I get the separate-lives thing, but this is a hunting thing, and we need to find that line…”

“Oh, my God, stop talking.” Dean raises his voice in exasperation only to start kicking the shit out of himself mentally for being so stupid. “I texted you my 20.”

“Yeah, I got it. Look, I'm on my way. And, listen, if you handle it, great. I'll buy your friend the first round. But, Dean, listen to me. It…” Dean abandons the phone on a nearby sideboard. “Dean!” Backing into the shadows, he watch a vampire approach the phone. “Dean. Are you kidding me?!” 

With a single sweeping strike, Dean cuts off the vampire’s head, then picks up his phone from the ground. The screen is shattered. “Oh, man, come on!” He hated buying new phones and transferring all of their god damn contacts.

He’s preparing to move the body, when he looks up and sees a second vampire watching him. Man, this just was not his night. It runs straight for him. Crouching down, Dean waits for the attack he knows is coming. Vampires, they’re fucking predictable. He slices this ones head off almost as quickly as the first one. But now he has to drag both of their fat asses where no one will see them. Son of a bitch. Of course, he only manages to get that halfway accomplished before more of the nest sniff him out and come at him with their fangs out.

Closing his eyes, Dean lets the memories of purgatory fill him. He lets his muscle memory take over as he kicks, punches, and slices his way through body after body. When he opens them back up, he standing in a room surrounded by a growing pool of blood and around half a dozen beheaded vampires. 

Dean’s about to head upstairs after Benny when he catches sight of him a little further down the hallway. Inching closer, he sees him place a knife on the piano/harpsichord thing. “The old man is dead.” He hears Benny say. Damn, he didn’t think the guy would have had it in him; not after how he’d folded so quick when they’d arrived. “Let’s go.” Dean couldn’t watch anymore. He could hear the love in Benny’s voice. Where would that leave him now that Benny had his Greek heiress back?

“Where, Benny?” Dean hears Andrea ask.

“What are you talking about? Anywhere.” Steeling himself, Dean looks up and watches the two of them very closely as he approaches. Benny’s voice is as wrecked as the hunter is feeling. “You're not leaving here, are you? And you never were.”

“We have everything we need right here. The operation is still perfect. We can ride the high seas, plunder together. We can have the life we always wanted.”

“What I wanted was to leave a burning crater behind. I wanted to put your memory to rest.” Dean hears Benny’s voice break at the end. And god damn, if he doesn’t know that feeling. He moves in little closer as Andrea continues to speak.

“But I'm not a memory. Benny, I'm right here.”

“What I loved… it ain't here anymore. It was snuffed out a long time ago by monsters like me... like what you've become.” And there it is, Dean realizes. Right there in front of his eyes, is Benny’s humanity… or maybe Cas would say… the vampire’s grace. 

“You think you're better than me now?” She snarls as her fangs descend.

“No. I think we're all damned.” Benny replies sadly. If he’s caught sight of the hunter , he hasn’t indicated it. When Andrea is just about to launch herself at Benny, Dean shoves a knife into her back just beneath her ribcage before dragging it back out to cut off her head. She falls to the ground with a heavy thud. Benny’s eyes meet Dean’s over her and hold one another’s gaze for a few fleeting second. And then Benny is looking down at her body with sorrow etched across his features. 

The walk through the forest is silent this time; absent of the whispered kisses and nostalgia of their first trip through. They’ve just settled back into the boat to head for the docks when Benny finally speaks. “Why'd you do it, Dean?”

Do what? “Do what?” Kill Andrea? If he was going to have to explain that… 

“Resurrect me. You could have drained my soul into any culvert, and no one would have been the wiser.”

But he would’ve known and it would’ve killed him to do something like that to Benny; especially after Cas didn’t make it. “What the hell are you talking about? Hey, you good?”

“Man... I don't know what I am.”

***

To say that Sam and Benny’s meeting doesn’t go all that well is an understatement if Dean’s ever heard one. Benny being his usual self had stepped right up and offered his hand in greeting to Sam as soon as they’d stepped off the boat. It’s only at Dean’s insistence that his little brother lets Benny walk away without so much as a good bye. It’s a far better cry than the end Sammy had intended at the hand of his machete.

Benny bolts after that and once again, Dean’s alone. He zones out Sam’s entire bitch-fit as they head back towards the hotel. He ignores the silent treatment and subsequent boredom of their road trip north. In the end, they end back up in Montana. An uneasy peace has settled between the brothers, but in all honestly, Dean is starting to wonder why he had tried so hard to come back.


	12. Chapter 12

Weeks later, they still haven’t been able to get a solid location on the Trans. Dean’s headed up the US 93 to the cabin in Whitefish. The days of nothing but driving are wearing on him. He’s got his music cranked up and is snacking on a bag of chips just to keep himself alert and awake. 

Due to a classic case of highway hypnosis, he almost doesn’t see the man in a trenchcoat walking along the side of the road. Having hitched a least a few dozen rides himself, Dean regards the man curiously and actually considers stopping. It isn’t until he’s overtaken the man that he realizes. It’s Cas; beard and pajamas and all. 

Slamming on the brakes, Dean keeps his eyes on Cas in the rear view mirror. He backs up down the road; his gaze never leaving the angel. Only when the car has been shifted into park, does the hunter tear his eyes off of Cas to climb out of the car. Thing is, no one is there. There is no sign of Cas. 

Dean’s fighting back angry tears as he flings himself behind the Impala’s steering wheel; punching it a few times for good measure. He was right there! What the hell was going on? Reaching into his pocket and grabbing his phone, Dean has Benny’s number pulled up on the screen and is about to dial when he hesitates. After all, he’d all but brushed the vampire off the last time they’d spoke. Why would he bother to give Dean the time of day in similar circumstances?

***

He doesn’t say a word to Sam about seeing Cas once he makes it back up to the cabin. Groceries and a six pack in hand, Dean trudges inside and aims to make a beeline for the fridge before he’s caught out.

“You look like you've s…” Sam frowns and cocks his head to the side. “...well, I was gonna say, you look like you've seen a ghost, but you'd probably be stoked. Uh, you okay?”

Praying that the uncertainty brewing inside of him doesn’t show, Dean shrugs. “Yeah, I'm cool.” He lets his attention follow the arc of his brother’s arms to the laptop. The complete lack of YouTube, Minecraft, or porn says only one thing: work. “What’s up?”

“Well, this kid went missing from a preschool…”

“That sucks. And?” Shifting the groceries to his hip, he tries to not let his impatience get the better of the conversation. Sam, for what it’s worth is trying to make amends. That won’t happen with Dean riding his ass the entire way.

“And at the same time he vanished, a surprise tornado hit, lasted maybe twenty seconds, then, uh... shazam! Back to perfect weather.”

“Hmm. And they pooh-pooh climate change.” He’s not entirely sure where the smile he manages comes from, but he’s not gonna knock it.

Chuckling, Sam agrees hesitantly. “Yeah.” Intuitive little shit, Dean grouses ashe he shoves the beer into the refrigerator and starts to unload the groceries. “Well, similar wackiness has happened over the past few weeks in other places.” Sam leans in towards the computer screen as he pulls up an article. “Uh, Tulsa, a bus driver vanishes and a river gets overrun with frogs. New Mexico, a mailman disappears, the earth splits open.”

Dean walks over to the table and stands behind Sam. Scanning the articles displayed, he asks. “All right. So, uh, you thinking demons?”

“Yeah, possibly, but... I mean, this stuff was major.” Dean starts to frown as his brother pulls up article after article of missing person reports. “These folks have nothing in common; no religious affiliations, different hometowns, all ages. Why would demons want them?”

A blessing in creepy demonic disguise; at least there will be a job to focus on. Shoving back the questions building in his mind due to seeing Cas on the roadside, Dean slaps Sam shoulder. “Why do demons want anything?” Sam starts minimizing his screens. “Uh, so, we on this?” Dean asks.

“Yep.”

***

A full day’s drive later, they settle into a motel for the night. They’ve got another days drive before they arrive anywhere useful. Sam has crashed out on the bed almost as soon as they’d scarfed down dinner. Dean had tucked in a couple slices of pie before settling down in front of the laptop. He’s flipping through the missing person reports when movement outside the window catches his eyes.

It’s Cas.

Heart racing, he slams the laptop closed and strides across the room to the window. But no one is there. Behind him Sam stirs as he wakes. “Dean? What's going on? Are you alright?” He throws back the covers and sits on the edge of the bed.

“I don't know. I just saw something.” The vulnerability in his voice would be embarrassing if it was anyone else hearing it. It’s not the first time Sammy’s been privy to it; though it is rare. 

Standing up, Sam tugs on a shirt and walks over to Dean. He glances out the window; eyes searching the landscape for something, anything. “Uh, you saw what?”

“Cas.” He whispers in a haunted tone.

That sets Sam off. “Cas? Where?!”

“Right there.” He nods out the window. Swallowing loudly, Dean decides to confess to his brother. “And, and, and earlier, on the road.” The rhythm of their breathing suddenly seems so loud, like waves crashing against a beach; only it’s all in his head. “I feel like I'm seeing him ev…”

“That's…” Dean’s pretty sure that Sam’s about to jump in with a stages of grief speech. He’s only mildly surprised when he doesn’t. “...not possible. I mean, you said it yourself. You made it out and he didn't, right?”

“I tried so damn hard to get us the hell out of there.” As the tears he’s been continuously fighting try to escape again, Dean turns away from the window and walks a few steps away.

“I know you did.”

His back still to Sam, Dean allows all of his bravado to deflate. “You know, I could have pulled him out. I just don't understand why he didn't try harder.” He can still feel Cas’ grip sliding out of his own and hear him screaming.

“Dean.” His brother’s voice is gentle; as if he’s preparing to soothe a spooked animal. Dean supposes that the analogy isn’t that far off. When he turns back to face Sam, he doesn’t hide the tears in his eyes. “You did everything you could.” The reassurance does little to calm him.

“Yeah, but why do I feel like crap?”

“Survivor's guilt?”

And there’s the psycho-babble he’d been expecting. “Hmm.”

“If you let it, this is gonna keep messing with you. You got to walk past it.” Clapping Dean on the shoulder, Sam walks to the bathroom. Any other time, he’d be thankful for his brother’s willingness to avoid a chick flick moment. Right now? He really could use one.

***

As much as beds are more comfortable than the jagged edges of dirt and rock, they still seem to kick Dean’s ass. He’s woken up exhausted every morning for well over a week. Offering Sam a brief nod, he trudges into the bathroom.

Looking up from the laptop, his brother raises the volume of his voice to reach him. “Hey, so it's not just Americans who are vanishing. Uh, this guy, Luigi Ponzi disappeared walking between two subway cars in Rome. And right above ground, there was a freak hail storm.”

Water is dripping off of his face as he wipes the sleepiness from his eyes, Dean hollers back. “So, we going to Rome? Wouldn't be too shabby!”

When he glances back at his reflection, Cas is standing behind him. Straightening up, Dean lets out a shocked gasp. Not here, not with Sam awake in the other room. He cannot deal with seeing the angel everywhere like this. The other two times, movement made him disappear. Heart heavy, Dean twists around to face Cas; expecting him to disappear.

“Hello, Dean.”

***

Sam and Castiel are sat across from each other at the hotel room’s breakfast table. Dean is leaning on the kitchenette counter. He keeps sweeping his eyes over the angel; he’s not entirely convinced that his mind isn’t playing trick on him. 

“Unbelievable, man. I...I cannot believe it. You're actually here.” Where there is sheer awe in Sam’s voice, Dean notices that there is a begrudging acceptance too. He wonders how his little brother must feel after over a year of the two of them being gone to suddenly have them just back like this.

“Yeah, I've been trying to reach out, but for whatever reason, I wasn't at full power. So I couldn't connect with you.”

Sam quirks an eyebrow at the less stilted phrasing of Castiel’s speech, but he doesn’t mention it. Dean’s noticed it too. He had back in purgatory. “That must have been why you kept seeing him. I mean, you think?” Sam zeroes his question in on Dean.

“Yeah. Yeah…” Something feels so off about this. He’s fucking thrilled Cas is back. Just, what exactly did he do to get back. Dean can imagine a dozen ways the right smooth talking demon could trick the angel into making a deal. There is precedence after all. “Uh, I got to be honest.” Dean settles a piercing gaze on Castiel. “I, I,I…” He tries to swallow back the stuttering. “I'm thinking, how the hell did you make it out? I mean, I…” Shame overcomes him and Dean’s steady gaze drops. “I was there. I, I, I know that place. I know how we had to scratch and claw and kill and bleed to find that portal and make it through it, and it almost finished me. So, uh…” Crossing his arms, Dean finally allows his armor of objectively fall into place. “So how exactly are you sitting here with us right now?”

“Dean, everything you just said is completely true.” That smarts. Dean can’t help but flinch at Cas’ words. It’s one thing to distrust someone. It’s another for that distrust to be aired so openly. “And that's the strange part. I... have no idea. I remember endlessly running and hiding from Leviathan, and then I was on the side of the road. And... that was it.”

Doubt still fills every part of Dean as he speaks; his tone is gentler now. If Cas truly doesn’t remember, how can he hold it against him? “And that… that was it?”

“Yes.” Castiel lets his own gaze drift over Dean. The hunter’s recovery is obvious. There’s muscle and mass and even a little extra weight where purgatory had left him nothing but bone and brawn. Glancing down at himself, Castiel announces with sudden realization. “Oh. I'm dirty.”

The double entendre behind the words hits Dean like a kick to the gut. Nostrils flaring, he attempts to seek out the familiar scent of Benny on the angel. But Cas is already headed for the bathroom. Unwilling to betray the details of his own past year to Sam, Dean is rooted to his spot against the kitchenette. “Yeah, well, Purgatory will do that to you.”

When the bathroom door clicks shut, Sam is the first one to speak. “Dean?”

“Huh?”

“You alright?” The overly gentle tone is back. 

Sam must really be worried about him. “You do see something…” Dean takes Cas’ spot at the table across from his brother. “...severely wrong here, right? Sammy, I remember every second of leaving that place. I mean, I remember the... the heat, the stink, the pain, the fear. I have that whole ugly mess…” He taps his head. “...right here, and he says he has no idea how he got out? I... I'm just not buying it.”

“So what, you think he's lying?!”

It wouldn’t be the first time. But it hurts to think that Cas would do that again; after everything they’d been through together and with Benny. “I'm saying something else happened. I saw the shape that he was in. I mean, there was no way he was fighting his ass out alone. No way.”

His brother picks up what he’s saying without disagreement. “All right. So, who... or what got him out?”

“Exactly.”

The ensuing silence is broken when Castiel walks back out of the bathroom. He is now wearing a suit and tie under the trenchcoat, which is clean, and is freshly shaved. “Better?”

It’s only moment before Dean has replayed the scene in his mind. Cas… went to the bathroom to what? Blink himself and his clothing clean? He notices the familiar suit has replaced the hospital scrubs and amends his thought. Cas went to the bathroom to blink himself and clothing clean and put on a suit. And he’s asking their opinion, mostly likely Dean’s, on his appearance. Oh yeah, Sammy is going to find out sooner rather than later exactly how much Dean and Cas’ relationship had changed over the last year.

 

***  
Supply runs were always a stellar way to get some time to think away from everyone and everything pressing in on a person. Granted, everything in Dean’s body had been telling him to send Sam out just so he could be alone with Cas. But once they walked down that path, there’d be no going back. If he touches him, he won’t be able to stop himself from doing more; not after thinking the angel had been trapped in purgatory until the end of his days.

The scene he returns to is familiar enough that it almost feels like coming home. Cas is watching television; back stiff and attention focused on the documentary. Sam, of course, is elbows deep in research. Dean shuffles in with his six pack and breaks the silence. “What's the latest?”

“The latest is... nothing. It's like it all stopped. No freak disappearances linked to any freak natural events.”

That’s more odd than anything. Shit like this usually doesn’t just stop. Setting the beer down, he leans over Sam’s shoulder to look at the laptop. “So how many have we got, seven?”

“Yeah, uh, Luigi, Justin, Aaron, Maria…” Sam begins to say.

And Castiel finishes, “Maria, Dennis, Krista, Sven.” The angel pays little mind to Dean and Sam both looking up at him with startled expressions on their faces. “I missed television.”

“Wait, Cas. How did you know those are the names?” Dean frowns at his brother’s tone; it’s the gentle one he’d been on the receiving end of earlier. He doesn’t allow the frustration to fester. Instead, he keeps his gaze on Cas.

“Well, they're prophets.” Castiel replies.

More prophets? That meant Chuck, Kevin and these seven… they’d didn’t have the manpower to protect them all. “Prophets?”

“Yeah, angels instinctively know the names of every prophet; past, present, and future.”

Dean didn’t miss the fact that Cas had said past, present, and future. “So this list is the name of every one of 'em that exists?”

“Yes, until the next generation is born. Plus Kevin Tran, of course. The other seven are future prophets, since, uh, only one can exist at a time.”

Taking the words out of Dean’s mouth, Sam finally pipes in. “Uh, how is Kevin a prophet if Chuck is a prophet?”

There’s a break in Castiel’s cool exterior when he speaks of Chuck. It’s unusual that he’d not been made aware of his passing. But, things were the way they used to be in heaven. “I'm not sure what happened to Chuck, but, um... he must be dead.”

“So, the next one comes off the bench if Kevin goes down?” Dean gets it, he does. He just wants confirmation. 

“Exactly. And they have no idea who they are, of course.” Castiel explains.

“Crowley.” Once again Sam beats Dean to the punch.

Dude wants insurance. If he can’t get Kevin to do his dirty work, he’ll use one of the others. “Insurance. Boy, he's getting desperate.”

“Explains all the weird phenomena. Lower-level demons nabbing heavy-duty cargo. The vessels of God's Word...boom.” 

Castiel has turned his attention away from the television; a worried expression on his face. “I get the feeling something's going on.”

No shit, Sherlock. Dean quirks an eyebrow at Cas seconds from calling him on his bullshit, oblivious act and then Sam’s phone rings. “Hello. Mrs. Tran?!” They all share an equally startled look this time. “Well, where the hell have you... What?!” Standing, Sam tucks his phone away. “Crowley's got Kevin.”

***

The three of them are camped out in the Impala. Mrs. Tran had told them to meet her here almost an hour ago. Something was wrong. Dean shifts behind the wheel and sighs. “Where the hell is she?”

“She'll be here. Uh, mile marker 96 was kind of the halfway point.”

Figures, Sam’s still on his soothe everything over with the talking and the rationality. Dean’s itching to do something, anything to keep his mind occupied. It’s like a runaway train in there. He can’t stop thinking about how he’d failed Cas and that the angel sitting there with them was somehow even more broken from it. “Cas, can I talk to you outside?” Dean pointedly ignores the support smile that Sam shoots them as they climb out of the car. 

Once they are settled against the trunk, Cas turns to him and asks. “What?”

“Exactly. What? What the hell happened? Back there. Purgatory. I told you I would get you out.” Fingers twitching as he holds himself back, Dean replays memories of holding Cas in his arms promising exactly that; getting him out. “We were there! It was like you just gave up. It's like you didn't believe we could do it.” Dean kicks at the gravel under his feet; his next words expressing a doubt he’d never let surface before. “I mean, you kept saying that you didn't think it would work. Did you not trust me?”

“Dean…” Castiel voice softens. He turns to face the hunter. Less apt to hold himself back, Castiel reaches out for Dean.

When the angel grips Dean’s bicep, he breaks just a little. “I did everything I could to get you out. Everything!” He blinks back the ever present angry tears that have been haunting him since his return. “I did not leave you.”

“So you think this was your fault?” Dean can almost feel Cas’ hand on his cheek as he speaks, when they’re interrupted by the approach of another vehicle. 

***  
Dean’s got to hand it to the Kevin’s mom. When she jumped into this hoodoo shit, she jumped in with both feet. Sure, she’d majorly fucked up by trusting a witch. But, as things went… at least they’d managed to locate her son. The fact that it’s another non-descript abandoned warehouse just amuses him. It shouldn’t; not at a time like this. But noting a predictability like that time and time again, it tends to draw out the sarcastic side of the hunter. Any brownie points he’d earned with Mrs. Tran are thrown out when Dean cuffs her to the steering wheel. As adaptive as she has proven herself to be, she’s also proven a liability. 

Sam and Cas are following him down through stairs and under pips and steel rebar. They pass a sign that reads: Beware: Sharp Edges - Keep Fingers Clear. Dean raises a fist in the air and motions them to hide. Peering around a corner, he watches as a demon approaches. Without hesitation, Dean jumps out and stabs him with their demon-killing knife. 

Exhaling sharply through his nose, Sam regards him warily before speaking. “All right. I'll check that way.” He heads off. Dean glances at Castiel and nods for them to go in the other direction. He doesn’t have to explain to the angel that he’d came back from purgatory a different hunter. If there’s anything Cas understands it’s that neither of them truly came back unchanged. They just aren’t talking about it. They aren’t exactly talking at all.

They’re even further into the depths of the warehouse when Castiel breaks the silence. “We're very near Kevin.”

Dean doesn’t have a chance to ask what he means. Cas’ eyes are tracking movement behind him. Drawing out his knife, Dean prepares to strike what is likely to be a demon moving in for an attack… only to be sent flying across the hallway and into a wall of chains. The hunter grunts in pain. He looks up to see the demon stretching out his hand towards Cas. Cas, who actually takes a couple step backwards before squaring his shoulders and smiting the damn thing. 

Frowning as he picks himself up off of the ground, Dean grips Cas’ shoulder as the angel attempts to steady himself against the wall. “What the hell's going on? You're not all the way back, are you?”

The shy nod Cas offers him causes Dean’s guts to tie themselves into even tighter knots. He can’t deal with this shit right now. It’s reminder after reminder of exactly how much he’d failed the angel… it’s unbearable. Right. Work. Focus. Kevin. Demon tablet. He allows Cas a moment to gather his wits and then starts down the hallway again.

A few yards and a couple turns later, Cas directs him to a door. It’s locked of course. Dropping to his knees, Dean attempt to pick it but is having next to no success. “It's not working.”

“Dean…” Castiel pauses allowing the hunter time to focus on his words. “I'm going in.”

No! Dean feels his chest tighten and the urge to vomit rear up inside of him. He can’t lose Cas again not after just getting him back. “Cas, no. You're not strong enough.” And then, just like that, he’s alone in the hallway. 

***

Dean had heard enough from Kevin to know what had gone down between Cas and Crowley. He wishes he could’ve been there to see it. It never got old seeing Crowley turn tail and run. But getting to see Cas’ wings again… he’d do almost anything to see that again. As it stands, Cas is helping him put things back into the Impala acting like nothing shady just went down. “That was a bonehead move back there. You could have gotten yourself killed. Why didn't you wait for me?” Really, why didn’t he trust him now that they were topside?

“Well, I didn't get killed. And it worked.” Castiel seems to be resolutely not look at him.

“And if it didn't?” Dean challenges.

“It would have been my problem.”

Cas’ words punch the air right out of his lungs. “Well, that's not the way I see it.”

“Dean.”

“Damn it, Cas.” Sam, Kevin and Mrs. Tran aren’t more than a cars length away; it doesn’t stop him this time. Wrapping a hand around the base of Cas’ neck, Dean hauls him forward and proceeds to kiss the hell out of him. It’s rough and desperate… and it says everything he’s been unable to. “It’d be my problem too… a big one.” He prays that Cas understands the unspoken words lingering under everything. Foreheads pressed together, he wants to say so much more. “It was my responsibility…”

“Hey…” Castiel traces his fingers over Dean’s cheek. “Everything isn't your responsibility. Getting me out of purgatory wasn't your responsibility.”

Finally. Fucking finally he sounds like Cas from purgatory when he speaks. And if that ain’t the shits. He misses the casualness of everything between them… there. He wants that here but is too scared to ask for it. “You didn't get out. So whose fault was it?”

“It's not about fault. It's about will. Dean, do you really not remember?” 

They’re pressed snug against each other now; Dean’s leg slotted between Cas’ thighs. He lets out a self deprecating laugh before he answers. “I lived it, Cas. Okay, I know what happened.” His fingers have drifted from the angel’s neck and up into his hair. 

“No.” Castiel cocks his head to the side. “No, you think you know. You remembered it the way you needed to.”

That’s about the hunter’s limit. Dean starts to push out of their embrace as he speaks. “Look, I don't need to feel like hell for failing you, okay? For failing you like I've failed every other godforsaken thing that I care about! I don't need it!”

Cas’ grip on him doesn't allow escape and he is literally seconds away from either throwing a punch or breaking down sobbing. “Dean. Just look at it. Really look at it.” Castiel presses his fingertip to Dean’s forehead. A familiar scene plays out in his mind.

Heart hammering in his chest, Dean swings wildly at the Leviathan seconds away from consuming Cas. Its head falls to the ground with a loud thump. There’s barely a moment and then the second Leviathan screams and launches itself at them. Castiel falls to his knees as he pushes it down and away from Dean. The hunter decapitates with a feral shout. Chest heaving, he offers his hand to Cas. “We gotta move! The portal’s closing!” He drags the angel to his feet. “Cas! Damn it! Come on!” Stumbling, Castiel attempts to follow but he’s falling too far behind. 

When Dean reaches the portal, he steps into it praying it won’t close with half of his body already in it. He stretches out his hand to Cas. “Come on!” Gripping Dean’s hand, Castiel allows himself to be pulled up. “I got you! Hold on!” 

He holds on as tight as he can, only to have rocks begin to slide out from under his feet. “Dean!”

“Hold on!”

Their fingers are wrenched apart as Castiel seems to lose his grip. He’s slid halfway down the embankment before he’s able to stop. The angel looks up into the hunter’s eyes and cries out once more before the portal closes; taking him with it. “Dean! Go!”

Castiel removes his fingers from Dean’s forehead. “See, it wasn't that I was weak.” He presses a kiss to the hunter’s eyebrow. “I was stronger than you. I pulled away. Nothing you could have done would have saved me, because I didn't want to be saved.”

Voice wrecked with emotion, Dean can barely manage a whisper. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“It's where I belonged. I needed to do penance. After the things I did on earth and in heaven, I didn't deserve to be out. And I saw that clearly when I was there. I... I planned to stay all along. I just didn't know how to tell you.”

And damn it if that doesn’t sound familiar, like a million and none of the thoughts and schemes Dean had tried to pull on his brother over the years… all because he felt guilty for not being strong enough, fast enough, good enough. Cas’ words break through the downward spiral of his thoughts. “You can't save everyone, my friend... though, you try.”

Clearing his throat, Sam settles down a couple feet away from them. If he’s at all shocked about their sudden intimacy, he doesn’t show it. “Hey. Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Just, uh... setting a few things straight.” Castiel replies quietly. 

Dean snorts into his cheek and has to look away. If he knows Sam, and he does, his brother is probably biting back a laugh at Cas’ expense that very moment. “Good. Garth is gonna lay low with the Trans, we’re gonna track down the other piece. You're with us on this one, right, Cas?” He pauses, squinting at the angel who appears suddenly dazed. “Cas, you okay?”

“I'm... I'm fine. And, yes, I'm with you.” Castiel looks to Dean for approval. “If that's all right?” Nodding, Dean watches Cas walk over to Kevin and attempt to start a conversation.

Sam hesitates. “It is, right? You two are good?”

Bless the hell out of him, Sammy doesn’t even push for details about him and Cas. Dean stares at his feet. One day he’s going to be able to sit down and talk about this and all of his other hang ups and issues with Sam and not choke on the words before they can even make it out of his mouth. But not today. “Yeah, we’re good.”


	13. Chapter 13

Castiel is leaning on the front of the Impala watching Sam and Dean as they gather supplies at the Gas ‘N Sip. Sam is talking on the phone as he fills the tank. “Right, yeah. No, just, uh, just call us whenever you find something.” Dean has just exited the building with snacks and drinks for the road. The sight of Cas and his brother in such a casual environment together warms his heart. It’s something he never thought he’d have. Sure Sam was always there but there were things in life that a brother just couldn’t provide. “Yeah. Yeah, course.” Removing the tops from a couple of beers, Dean hands a bottle to Sam and tries to decipher the conversation from his one sided vantage point. “Right. No, I, I, uh... Yeah, hey, you know what? Uh, Dean's here. He really wants to talk to you.”

Sparing a glare for his brother, Dean sighs and takes the phone; completely not how he wanted to get caught up on things. “Mrs. Tran, yeah, hi, uh…” He hangs up and tosses the phone back to Sam. “What?! Tunnel.” He replies in mock innocence. “So what's going on in Tran-land?”

“Well, uh, Garth finally got them to his houseboat, but Kevin's having a lot of trouble reading their half of the tablet. So far, bits and pieces. Nothing about boarding up Hell.”

Chuckling, Dean smirks over at his brother. “Garth has a safe-houseboat?” A houseboat? Really?

“Dude, I don't even ask questions anymore.”

Dean couldn’t argue with that logic. Pulling a drink from his bear, he watches as Sam moves to take the gas pump out of the Impala. Not finding much distraction in watching that, Dean walks to the front of the car where Castiel is reading a newspaper. “What's the word, Cas?”

“It's a shortened version of my name.” A frown forming on his brow, Castiel regards the hunter with an expression of worry and curiosity.

Laughing again, Dean replies. “Yes, it is.” There were times both here and in purgatory that he couldn’t tell if Cas simply had a dry sense of humor or if he honestly didn’t understand. Licking his lips, Dean leans against the car next to him. “I meant what's the word on the Word? Any, uh, tablet chatter on angel radio?”

“Oh, I couldn't say. I turned that off.”

Sam approaches them from behind. “You can do that?” 

“Yeah, it's a simple matter of blocking out certain subsonic frequencies. I could draw you a diagram if you want.” Castiel offers.

Dean glances between Cas and Sam fearing an imminent geek out. “No, that's… that’s… we're good.” He shifts from one leg to the other; still leaning against the vehicle. “So, why'd you flip the switch?”

“Because…” Castiel starts and Dean actually worries for a moment that it’s going to be the his sole response. He lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding when Cas continues. “It's a direct link to Heaven.” The angel’s voice drops in volume. “And I don't want anything to do with that place. Not anymore.”

Whoa. Dean hadn’t realized it had gotten that bad. Cas’ response was brutal and to the point; though it still didn’t answer the why… not exactly. “So what now? Move to Vermont, open up a charming B&B?”

“No?” Clearly, Castiel is not exactly sure what a B&B but is not about to let that stop him from explaining. “I still want… I still need to help people. So…” A genuine smile spreads across his face as he looks between the brothers. “I'm gonna become a hunter.”

“Really?!” Sam’s eyebrows are at least a few inches closer to his hairline and Dean is doing his best not to chortle at the sight of it. What Sammy doesn’t know about Cas and exactly how they survived purgatory… won’t hurt him. And for what it’s worth, Dean thinks Cas could be a hell of a hunter which is why he’s toning down his own reaction.

Unphased by Sam shock, Castiel continues. “Yeah. I could be your third wheel.”

He wonders how much theirs and Benny’s relationship has messed with Cas’ ability to understand normalcy. In any case, with a smile playing on his lips Dean decides to jump in. Kick ass hunter or no, it was just too easy to rile the angel up. “You know that's not a good thing, right?”

“Of course it is!” Cas counters enthusiastically. “A third wheel adds extra grip, greater stability. I even found a case. Oklahoma City. A man's heart jumped ten feet out of his chest. It sounds like our kind of thing, right?” Cas is alternating between giving both of them puppy dog eyes and already looking defeated. There’s no way Dean can say no to that.

“He's got a point.” Sam admits. And apparently, his brother agrees.

“Excellent!” Castiel taps out a rhythm on the hood of the Impala. “I'll see you there.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa. That wasn’t gonna work. Not job-wise and not personally. “Wait, Cas, Cas! If you want to play cowboys and bloodsuckers, that's fine. But you're gonna stick with us, okay? None of this zapping around crap. Capiche?”

The angel tilts his head at Dean and considers his words for a moment before responding. “Yeah, I capiche.”

Sam, on the other hand, is looking on speechless as his brother walks over to the driver’s side door. “Alright, then.” Dean says as he climbs into the car; set on ignoring Sam’s over reaction. 

“Can I, uh, at least ride in the front seat?” Cas requests hopefully.

That snaps Sam out of his daze. It’s bad enough that he’s usually delegated to shotgun instead of driving. Shouldering Castiel out of the way, him and Dean both respond with a resounding. “No.” Castiel acquiesces silently and slides into the back seat. If he truly protests the matter, he doesn’t let it be known. 

***

They are standing around a body at the morgue listening to the detective on the case and one of the lab rats explain the details. Sam and Dean are in suits… as is Castiel but he’s still got on his trenchcoat. Dean thinks it’s adorable but Sammy keeps muttering about it. 

“Coroner said his heart was ejected from his body.” The detective flips through a clipboard that had been hanging on the body’s cart. “Got some air, too. Found it in a sandbox.”

Nice imagery, Dean muses. He’d say as much but Sam, ever the professional, glares at him before replying. “Any idea what happened, Detective?”

“A lot of people are thinking drugs, Agent Nash… an assload of drugs.”

Castiel leans into Dean’s space and whispers. “There are no narcotics in that man's system. It’s strange… his molecules are all wrong.” That has to mean something, Dean is sure; but what? The hunter cuts his eyes at the angel but doesn’t respond.

Sam is still talking with the detective; gathering clues. “But you don't think that, huh?”

“Never seen an eightball do that.” The Detective pulls back the sheet to reveal the cookie-cutter heart-shaped hole in victim’s chest.

“Wow.” Sam deadpans. Dean glances over Cas’ shoulder at the wound and offers a speculative hum. “And who called this in?” 

“Friend of his named Olivia Kopple. She saw the whole thing.” The detective pauses. “Well, it’s all there in the file. You boys need anything else?” 

Dean jumps in. “Nah, we’re good. Listen, you see anything weird, anything out of the box, you give us a call.” He hands the detective a card.

“Whatever you say, Scully.”

Dean smirks at the nickname as he looks first at his brother who is already nose deep in the file and then to Cas who is… sniffing the body. His mouth dropping open, Dean has to admit that he’s actually shocked speechless. It only lasts a moment, but he is.

“I can't sense any EMF or sulfur. Mr. Freleng's arterial health is, uh, excellent.” Castiel leans in closer and sniffs again. “Mm. He did recently suffer from a... mild, uh... What is that? ...bladder infection.”

“Cas, stop smelling the dead guy!” Dean finally manages to say something; a deep flush has spread over his cheeks. Lucky for both of them, Sam’s still pretty focused on the file he was just handed. Otherwise, he’d have to explain exactly why the angel sniffing… things… made him blush. No fucking thank you.

“Why?” Cas inquires. “Now I know everything about this man. So we can…”

“Do you know he was having an affair?” Sam asks derailing the angel’s defense. Little brother to the rescue, Dean smiles.

“What?” Cas’ face falls at the news. 

It’s almost cute. Scratch that, it is cute. Bumping his shoulder to Cas’, Dean teases. “Strike one, Sherlock.”

Sam glances between them with an unreadable expression on his face but remains focused on the file. “According to Olivia, they would meet at the park every Thursday at 12:45, walk to the Moonlight diner, where she always ordered a Caesar salad, dressing on the side. They would chat about everything, and she'd be back on the road by 1:30.”

Castiel looks from Dean and then to Sam. It takes him a moment to get the implication. “You don't think she's telling the truth?”

Offering the angel a smile, Dean explains the woman’s mistake. “Too much detail. Sounds rehearsed.”

“Plus, we drove past the Moonlight Diner on the way into town. It's attached to the Moonlight Motel.” Sam further explains.

“Okay, well, let's say that, uh…” He peers at the name on the case file in Sam’s hands. “here's on the prowl, but he's playing it safe because…” Dean steps away from Castiel’s side to lift the body’s left hand out from under the sheet and sees his wedding ring. “Dude's married. Doesn't want anyone to see his ride parked out in front of a by-the-hour fleabag.”

“So, he stashes his car at the park across the street, meets Olivia there?” Sam jumps in; bouncing his idea off of Dean.

“His wife probably found out about it, and it broke her heart.” Castiel announces sadly. Dean is elated that he’s joining in on their brainstorming so quickly. 

Sam smiles and nods at the angel. “So she breaks his. Sounds witchy.”

“Yes, it does. Guy was living a lie, and it came back to bite him in the ticker.” Dean offers a wink in Cas’ direction. “But nice job on the bladder infection.” He moves to head back to the car when he notices the devastated look on the angel’s face. 

Digging his heels in, Dean does a turn about face and falls back to the angel’s side. “Hey. Look, man… it’s the nuances. They’re harder to grasp.” Wrapping his arm around Cas’ shoulder, Dean gives him a squeeze. It’s about the only PDA he can risk under their current cover. “I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have been giving you so much crap.”

Castiel offers him a silent nod before shrugging out from under his arm and following Dean back to the Impala.

***

Things only get more out of hand when they visit Gary’s widow. Dean has ultimately decided that he needs to monitor Cas’ television intake and stat. His bad cop schtick is beyond bad. Furthermore, it actually hurts to see the frustration and embarrassment breaking down Cas’ normally cool exterior. So, Dean nods towards his brother hoping to allow the angel an opportunity to learn from something a little more realistic than TV show. 

“What my partner was trying to ask... is... is there any way Gary might have had secrets... something he was hiding?”

The widow looks almost as confused as Cas. “Hiding? Like what?” There is a knock at the door and someone lets themself in.” It’s the husband’s girlfriend. She and the widow hug and cry into an all too familiar looking embrace. 

Sam appears to be at a loss for words. Dean, on the other hand is slowly piecing things together. “The mistress…”

“This is awkward.” Castiel states earning a double take from Dean. 

The widow turns back to them with an arm still around her husband’s girlfriend. “I'm sorry. W-what did you think Gary was hiding?”

Before Dean can stop him from sticking his foot in his mouth yet again, Castiel bluntly explains. “That he was sleeping with her.” He nods towards the girlfriend.

The widow gives them a half smile. “I know.”

And then Sam is doing a double take of his own. “Wait… you know?”

“Gary and I. We... had an arrangement. He was seeing Olivia, and I was spending some time with our neighbor P.J.” Before the dirty laundry can really be aired, both women pawn off speaking with them; leaving them to find their own way out.

“Frigging suburbs, man.” Dean chuckles hoping that the tinge of jealousy he feels doesn’t shine through. It’s obvious enough to himself why he’s jealous. That openness is something he’s pretty sure that him, Cas and Benny will never ever have.

“So she's not a witch?” Castiel clarifies.

“Just the best wife ever!” Dean smiles at the angel hoping to draw him out of the lull his inexperience has dragged him into today. It doesn’t work. That and now Sam is giving Dean this long hard intense look; the kind that says he knows something’s up but isn’t about to stick his own hand in the trap to find out what.

Frowning, Castiel simply asks. “Then what killed her husband?”

***  
The job only gets weirder as the day progresses. A suicide later and Dean is running through the details with his brother when Cas approaches. “She's right, you know. I mean, the whole heart jumping out of the guy's chest, the the delayed fall? That's straight-up Bugs Bunny.”

Sighing, Castiel tries his hardest to come up with a reasonable explanation of things. “So we're looking for some sort of insect-rabbit hybrid? How do we kill it?”

Sam, for what it’s worth, doesn’t laugh. “No, we don't, Cas. That's a character, like, uh... like Woody Woodpecker or Daffy Duck.”

“They're little animated movies.” Dean takes over explaining. It’s difficult not to laugh but he’s trying his hardest for Cas’ sake. “You know, uh, the coyote chases a roadrunner, and then the…” He pauses a moment to chuckle at how ridiculous it sounds explaining it to someone who has never seen it before in his life. “The anvil gets dropped on his head.” 

Sam is smiling even as Castiel responds in frustration. “Is it supposed to be funny?”

“No.” Dean holds a serious face for a moment just drawing it out. “It's hilarious.” The look the angel shoots him is not unlike how he had regarded Benny back in purgatory. Dean supposes it’s not altogether uncalled for… the vamp and him had shared a certain flare for dark humor Wrapping his arm around Cas’s shoulder again, he leads him towards the stairwell. 

***

Back at the motel, Dean has Castiel sit at the edge of the bed before flipping on cartoons for him. After a half hour of silent research on the brothers’ part, Dean glances up from his dad’s journal and sees Cas laughing softly at the screen. Noticing the hunter’s gaze on him, Castiel turns off the television. “I understand. The bird represents God. And coyote is man, endlessly chasing the divine, yet never able to catch him. It's…” He looks to Dean and deadpans. “It's hilarious.”

Dean shares a look with Sam. Neither respond. How the hell do you respond to that anyway? “I got no idea what we're hunting. Maybe it's a Tulpa. Maybe it's some…” Rubbing his face in his palms, he stretches out in his seat. “Some crazy god who watched too much Robot Chicken. I mean, is there a link between Heartbreak Hotel and Free Fallin’?”

“Not that I can find.” Sam admits.

“Alright, well, I'm gonna call it.” He closes the journal. Glancing between his brother and the bed, Dean gathers up his courage. It’s now or never. He can come clean quick and easy. One less lie to carry around. “Cas, you coming to bed too, or what?”

“No, I'll stay...” The angel glances between the bed and the television. “... here. I don’t sleep.”

He doesn’t sleep anymore, Dean amends in his head. “Okay, well, I need my four hours, so…” He motions towards the bed furthest from the door.

“I'll watch over you.” Cas offers politely.

Sam’s previous successes at staying out of the conversation fly out the window as he attempts to stare the truth out of his brother. Dean shrugs it off. Sammy’s a smart boy, he’ll figure it out. “That's not… necessary here, Cas. No monsters… not even under the bed.” 

Castiel regards the shadowed area beneath the beds with renewed interest. He’s about to respond when suddenly he flinches. “Something's coming across the police band.”

Police band? What? Dean is as shocked as his brother. “Wait, you can hear that?” They are seriously underutilizing their angel. Since, when could Cas hear the police band?

“It's all waves.” Castiel explains without actually… well, explaining.. “A bank has been robbed. It sounds loony.”

Sam replies. “Define loony.” 

***

The bank is buzzing with uniformed officers when they arrive. Thankfully, it lends their own suits credibility as they wander the crime scene. And Sam has to admit. “That's loony, all right.”

The detective from the previous two cases approaches them. “Agents. I was just about to give you a ring. I gotta ask. Do you boys chase the crazy, or does the crazy chase you?”

“Depends on the day.” Sam replies with a chuckle.

After that, Dean takes to shadowing Cas as he wanders. Sam knows his stuff, he’s more worried about the angel at the moment. “You alright?” He asks once they are out of earshot.

“I’m fine, Dean.”

“C’mon. Don’t play that fiddle, Cas. I know this has to be a lot to take in. It’s a weird case, even for us.” Any hard ass notions he’d had earlier about giving the angel grief have flown out the window. As much as Cas’ ignorance is a handicap, it really doesn’t matter all that much to Dean. The fact of the matter is that he’s here and he’s safe. Cas doesn’t really respond to the hunters attempts at consolation. So, Dean decides to refocus his attention on the job. Pointing to where an anvil has quite literally crushed the bank’s security guard, he turns to Cas and asks. “Hey. Can you lift this?”

He’s expecting something dry and witty back; maybe even a smart ass retort. What he is not expecting is for Castiel to lean over and actually move the damn thing out of the way. Gaping, Dean stands there open mouthed for at least half a minute. He doesn’t know where to look. Any other guy, he’d be creeping his gaze over their’ hands, arms, legs… hell, anywhere that indicated that amount of strength. The sheer un-humanness of the angel is not usually brought into such clear light. And damn if it doesn’t do something for him. Clearing his throat, Dean mumbles a thanks as they look past the blood and gore only to find exactly what the hunter had been expecting all along. “X marks the spot! Well, whoever's doing this is playing by cartoon rules.”

“Animation doesn't have rules.”

“Sure it does.” Dean replies with a smirk. “In Toontown… A pretty girl can make your heart leap out of your chest, anvils fall from the sky, and if you draw a door or a black hole on the wall, you can stroll right through it.” He scans the room as he explains this to Cas. What he’d written off as a strange choice for interior decorating, now made perfect sense. There are black circles everywhere. Dean motions for Cas to follow him and they walk over to one of the circles on the wall.

“So this is how the thief got in?” Castiel asks.

Dean’s pulls his EMF reader out of his pocket and scans the surface. “And out. And cracked the vault.”

Reaching out and touching the black circle, Castiel tries to push his hand through it. But, the wall behind it is solid. “Then why isn't it working now?”

Dean hasn’t got the slightest idea why it isn’t working now. All they knows is that, it had before and would again. “I got no clue.” 

That simple admission seems to work where all of his other reassurances throughout the day have fallen flat because next thing Dean knows, Cas is humming to himself as he falls in step next to the hunter as he leaves the bank.

***

Sam heads back to the police station with the detective leaving Dean and Cas to research back at the hotel. It’s ideal in that Cas is still getting his sea legs when dealing with the subtler aspects of humanity. And Dean, well, he’s not exactly chomping at the bit to leave the angel’s side. 

Dean is scouring through newspaper articles on the laptop while Castiel is settled in on one of the beds reading through their John Winchester’s journal. “Your father... Beautiful handwriting.”

The angel’s tone reminds Dean of how his voice sounded just before he used to go on about the bees. It’s softer and further away sounding than he’s used to. “How you feeling, Cas?”

“I'm fine.” He replies in the same low tone.

Dean stands up and walk over to the bed. He doesn’t sit, not at first. “Well, I just…. I...I... I know that when... I got puked out of Purgatory, it took me a few weeks to... find my sea legs.” The unspoken topic of Benny hangs in the air above them; neither of them willing to address it.

“I'm fine.” Castiel insists quietly.

“Don't get me wrong. I'm... I’m happy you're back. I'm... I’m freaking thrilled.” Hand trembling, he reaches out and cards his fingers through Cas’ hair. “It's just this whole mysterious resurrection thing... it always has one mother of a downside.” And he’s scared of what’s waiting for them around the corner, ready to attack. 

Castiel closes the journal. “So, what do you want me to do?”

“I dunno.” He can’t believe he’s saying this. “Talk to me, man. Sometimes you’re still so far away… it doesn’t feel like you came back at all.”

“Dean.” Urgency curls its way into the angel’s voice. 

At least something Dean has said seems to have gotten through to him. “I’m serious, Cas. If something’s not feeling right… you gotta tell us… you gotta tell me.”

“I… I don’t understand what is expected of me now. I don’t understand why Benny’s not here. I don’t know…”

Dean’s hands are trembling as they slide over the contours of Cas’s face and draw him in; swallowing anything else he was going to say. It begins chaste only to deepen in a bright, white surge of need and desperation. The static electricity flowing over his skin from the angel’s touch is a sensation Dean suddenly feels he can no longer live without. God, he wants to fuck him so bad. But, he also wants to change Cas’ perspective on everything he’s ever witnessed sex to be; brutal and necessary back in purgatory... fake and impersonal in porn. Dean wants to show him something else entirely. He wants the angel to feel desired, loved, and cherished. It’s alien even to himself he’ll admit, but with Cas… it feels like second nature.

Dean can’t explain what happened with Benny; here or in purgatory. Not yet. He’s still wrapping his head around that. Instead, he tears his mouth from Cas’ only to begin peppering kisses along his jaw and throat. Dean’s aim is to seduce the angel into bed. And it seems to be working.. Cas is gasping and trembling against him; but he isn’t telling him to stop. Dean’s nearly as breathless when his lips press against the swell of Castiel’s earlobe. “Do you want me to stop?” He has to make sure this is kosher. As much as he wants this, it can’t be like... He… he needs consent. And if that doesn't just beat all, Dean doesn’t know what does. 

“No.” Castiel’s voice is a low, breathy whisper. It’s something new that Dean’s never heard fall from the angel’s lips before. It sends shivers down his spine. 

Shifting back, Dean draws his fingers up the tangle of the tie hanging from Cas’ neck. He slowly unknots it and slides it off. He tosses it onto the floor soundlessly. The nervous energy coming off of Cas is enough to make him dizzy. Before he continues, Dean leans forward and kisses him again; once to settle his nerves and twice for good measure. His teeth linger on the angel’s bottom lip only to leave it with a playful bite. “Dean!’ Cas gasps and tries to follow his mouth with his own once they separate.

Smirking, Dean shakes his head and moves away from his attempts. Instead, he reaches down and begins slipping button after button of the angel’s shirt open. It reveals Cas’ pale but muscular chest. The hunter attempts to commit the sight to memory. It’s a far cry better than the dirt and blood stained memory he’d been harboring. Sliding his fingertips from stomach to sternum, Dean pauses to meet Cas’ eyes. The innocence and wonder that he’d first seen and defined as the angel’s connection to mankind, his humanity, shines there. That and so much more. Dean sees past the past memories of so much blood and pain. 

Nodding towards the pillows at the head of the bed, he swallows loudly. “We should… we should, uh, scoot up.” His chest rising and falling rapidly, Dean almost laughs at how nervous he is. “If you’d like…” He’s beginning to doubt himself. Cas is… is not human. There’s so much he doesn’t understand. Is it really the right time for… for all this?

“Yes.” A blush rises to Castiel’s cheeks. He bows his head. “Please.”

Voice thick when he speaks, Dean nods slowly. “Okay.” The submissive undertone of Cas’ actions stir the possessive streak he’d allowed to take over back in purgatory. Imbued by a sudden flare of confidence, Dean makes his move. Reaching out, he takes the lapels of Cas’ trenchcoat in his hands and drags it off of his shoulders and onto the bed. He’d seen him in the suit before before his vessel Jimmy had died at the hands of demons. And he’d seen him in filthy hospital scrubs. Somehow, Cas wears it all so differently. Palms pressed to the angel’s chest, Dean slid his hands down until they reach his waist. 

Cas is breathing heavy as he watches Dean’s hands tug the fabric of his shirt out of his pants. When their eyes met, he is the one to reach out and pull the hunter in for a kiss this time. His shirt and suit jacket slide to the floor with a soft thump along with his trenchcoat as he draws his arms out of them to wrap around Dean.

Unable to hold himself back any longer, Dean shoves at Cas until he’s flat on his back on the bed with the hunter kneeling over him. Sliding an arm under the angel, he drags him up off of the mattress. His back arching into the touch, Cas presses against Dean getting as close as their bodies will allow. Dean trails his lips down the slope of Cas’ neck. He digs his fingers into the muscles shifting under his touch. “Cas!” The hunter cries out in a desperate whisper. 

Cas’ hands are sliding down the nape of his neck and down to his shoulders over and over again. “I’ve got you.” He reassures Dean. The gentle shushing of his voice and the soothing repetition of his touch quells the burning desire in the hunter’s gut. For now.

Rearing back up off of his hands, Dean tugs at his own shirt. Cas’ eyes fall first to the bright red scar on his shoulder and then to the anti-possession tattoo on his chest. He’s seen everything before in varying stages. That and, Dean knows Cas has seen the scars that used to mar the his flesh; pale line after pale line cut across so much skin. He’d witnessed it the day he’d raised the hunter from hell. Once upon a time, Dean had thought of the act that had raised him from hell as being too intimate. Turns out, he’d been wrong about that too. There was no such thing as too intimate.

Cas shifts beneath him; moving to unbuckle his belt and remove his pants. He stops midway when Dean lets out a undefinable noise. Worry filling his eyes, the angel looks up from where his hands have pushed the material of his under clothes and trousers down to his thighs. “Are you alright, Dean?” Dean nods mutely; his bottom lip is quivering as it tends to do when he’s having trouble finding the words within himself to speak. Cas finishes wiggling out his clothes, toeing off his socks and shoes quickly. “Are you certain?”

“Yes, Cas… I’m fine.” A quiet laugh escapes the hunter. Any reaction that Cas was going to have is lost as Dean’s lips are once again on his. And when his own body responds, not to the idea of claiming or being claimed but to Cas and Cas alone, it no longer frightens him. Lust is as natural as love. There is no shame in that either. Dean’s hands are everywhere. Caressing the angel’s sides, sliding over the swell of his hips, settling on the small of his back only to grasp desperately when Cas curls his tongue into the hunter’s mouth. Sucking gently at the slickness of it, Dean reaches down and unfastens his own pants with fumbling fingers. It feels like it should be embarrassing, but it isn’t. 

Dragging his eyes over the contours of Cas’ face, Dean tries to take in everything about him all at once. The deep flush that has spread over the angel’s cheeks, neck and shoulders; it deepens as the Dean’s eyes drift lower. Cas draws him out of his reverie with a soft words spoken against his jaw. “You’re beautiful.”

Embarrassed laughter bubbles out of Dean; it seems to confuse Cas but he smiles anyway. “Guys aren’t normally called beautiful, Cas. But, uh…” Dean blushes as he tries to take the compliment for what he’s sure Cas intended it to be… honest. “Thanks?”

“What is the proper vernacular?” Cas asks out of honest curiosity. He’s taken hold of the hunter’s wrists where they bracket his head. His gaze doesn’t leave Dean’s. They simply stare at one another until Dean finally answers. 

“Handsome. Guys are handsome.”

“You are exceedingly handsome then, Dean.” Cas replies before arching up and stealing a kiss. He swallows any response the hunter has to this compliment with the press of his cheek against Dean’s jaw. He mimicks the open mouthed kisses Dean had given him there earlier. He even goes as far as to suck the tender flesh of his earlobe between his lips. The action tears a whining noise from Dean’s throat. Moaning as he repeats the process, Cas is rewarded by Dean gripping the back of his neck and holding him in place. 

Cas kisses, sucks, and nips at Dean’s ear until the rolling thrusts it is inducing becomes a distraction. Pressing into the tight grip along the back his neck, Dean pulls back to look at Cas again. The angel’s pupils are wide and dark, his bottom lips swollen. Dean’s pulse is hammering hard and fast through his veins. “What typically occurs now?” Cas inquires.

His questions leaves Dean blinking in confusion. Confusion that quickly transforms into understanding, then awe, then a kind of sadness. For all the subtle nuances that the angel didn’t get about humanity, it was more than obvious he was aware of the differences between purgatory and the present. “Cas…?”

“It’s fine, Dean.” He reassures him. “I want this. I consent to anything you want. I…” And now he’s the one blushing again. “I just don’t know what to do without you taking lead.” 

“I can’t ask you to do any of that here… it’s not right. You’re an angel and I’m… ”

Cas cuts him off before he can finish. “And if you are what I desire, Dean?”

“You couldn’t possibly.” Not here. Not here. Dean caresses Cas’ face before pressing their foreheads together.

“I could. And I do.” Cas doesn’t allow time for an argument. Taking advantage of the strength his vessel obtains from containing his being, he grapples briefly with Dean; stopping only when the hunter is the one pinned to the mattress. And then Cas slides slowly down Dean’s torso. His gaze settling on the hunter’s cock, he reaches up and grasps the base with his right hand. 

Dean is struggling to swallow the loud moans threatening to escape his lips as Cas proceeds to lean in and slide his mouth slowly over the tip of his dick. His desperate whimpers seem to translate into encouragement; because rather than backing off, Cas is dipping down and taking him further in. 

Hands falling to Cas’ shoulders, Dean stops trying hold back. His moans are probably loud enough to disturb the people in the next room over, but he can’t find it in himself to care. Dean’s attention never leaves the angel’s face as he pleasures him. He sees the worry and trepidation for what they were when Cas had first taken him in. The subsequent blissed out look that spreads over his features is more than anything Dean could’ve ever prayed for. He’d never dreamed of this aspect of their relationship coming to pass. And he’d most certainly never believed it would happen like this. He can’t believe it because he realizes suddenly; he’s in fucking love. 

When Cas pulls off of him with a breathless gasp and looks up at him, it’s almost too much for him to stand. Dean drags his thumb over the swollen curve of the angel’s mouth before running his fingers through Cas’ hair. The hunter had been embarrassed when he’d called him beautiful moments ago, but looking down at Cas like this... Dean totally understood how another man could be beautiful now. “C’mere.” He asks in a broken whisper. 

“Was that satisfactory?” Cas asks shyly as he crawls back up and over him.

“Fuck.” Dean murmurs. “More than.” He caresses Castiel’s cheek with his knuckles before leaning up and kissing him. 

Grinning down at the hunter, Cas inquires further. “Now what?” 

“Now?” Dean smirks up at him. “Now, you grab onto something and hold on, Cas.”

Cas seems to recognize the tone as flirting immediately. Giggling, he responds. “Yeah?” He leans down over Dean until their lips are a breath apart. “What are you gonna do to me?”

“Everything.” His playful tone slips and the seriousness pushes through. He isn’t kidding and he wants it all. Anything and everything that Cas is willing to give, Dean wants it. 

“Okay.” He assents and then Dean is shifting their bodies. Cas finds himself flat on his back once more as the hunter moves over him and then... down, down, down. Clutching at the sheets beneath him, Cas whimpers when Dean leaves a scorching path of hungry kisses over his chest and down his stomach. 

Cas is moaning loudly, and Dean is revelling in it. He couldn’t care less who hears. When Dean take the angel into his mouth, he is forced to hold him down. Cas is shaking under him. And just like that, Dean feels like a man starved. He takes to Cas with an intense focus and doesn’t stop until he’s keening beneath him. Then and only then does Dean release Cas’ cock from his lips. 

Crawling back up and over the angel, Dean presses their bodies together from thigh to shoulder. “How are you real?” He asks reverently. The hunter truly didn’t know. Everything he had ever known was thrown into complete chaos the day he met Cas. 

“Because of you.” Castiel replies before initiating a heated kiss. When the thrusting of their hips begins to flow in tandem with the movements of their kissing, Dean manages to hold himself together enough watch Cas writhing beneath him delirious with need; the hunter’s name falling off of his lips like a plea. And Dean gets it, he feels it too; like he’s begging for something that neither of them can define. 

“Feel that?” Dean asks him; his voice wrecked. Castiel nods desperately. “That pull deep down. Like if something doesn’t happen soon, you’re going to shatter into a million pieces? Like you’re going to… explode?”

“Yeah?”

“Let yourself.”

“Let myself what?” Cas whispers against Dean’s lips as they hover over his own.

“Explode.”

Cas obeys promptly and completely. He moans and clings to Dean; knuckles white as if he’ll be anywhere other than right there beneath him when it all ends. And when it finally does end, Dean is a trembling mess above the angel in the throes of his own release.

***

Dean doesn’t even realize he’s fallen asleep until he wakes up wrapped up beneath the motel’s stiff blankets… in Cas’ arms. Smiling, he burrows into his pillow until he remembers that they hadn’t gotten around to getting a second room. Eyes flying open, he’s met with the sight of Sam belly down on the other bed asleep. A part of the hunter tells him he should be embarrassed that his little brother probably stumbled in after Dean had already fallen asleep; naked as the day he was born. But another part is cooing softly and reassuring him that everything is okay. What he does wonder about is Cas. Had he fallen asleep too despite insisting he didn’t need to here? Or had he stayed up talking with Sam?

“Sorry, I know that wasn’t talking.” Castiel whispers behind him.

Well, that answered the sleeping part of his questions. Shuffling to turn and face him, Dean smirks. “What?”

“When I asked what do you wanted me to do? You answered… talk to you.” Cas draws his fingers over the stubble on Dean’s jaw as he speaks.

“I’ve always preferred action to words.” Dean jokes even as he’s pressing into the angel’s lingering caresses.

Cas nods against his pillow. “There was more to it than that though. There’s is something else you want me to do… I… I could tell.”

He’s not wrong. But now, it seems like too much to ask. Shaking his head, Dean pulls Cas into his arms and admit this. “It’s too much to ask.”

“Should I not be the judge of that?” Cas’ voices raises. Sam stirs in his bed but does not wake up. 

Dean is ashamed. He doesn’t want to request this of him, but Cas is adamant. While it hasn’t gotten bad yet, he’s seen others at the fervered end of the angel’s insistence. So, he gives in. “I had been thinking that maybe… maybe you should take a trip upstairs?”

“To Heaven?” Cas asks.

“Yeah, poke around, see if the God squad can't tell us how you got out of purga…”.

Cas cuts him off. “No.”

Now that they’ve breached the subject, Dean doesn’t exactly feeling inclined to back off. The idea had its merits. It just hadn’t felt right asking about it after they’d just had sex. “Look, man, I hate those flying-ass monkeys just as much as you do, but…”

“Dean! I said no!” 

The anger behind the words is startling. There’s obviously something else going on here. “This is where I want you to talk to me, Cas.” Dean pauses and reaches out to rest the palm of his hand on the angel’s cheek. It’s a touch he’d find comforting himself and he hopes Cas does too.

“Dean, I…” The words seem caught in Cas’ throat but he does try to continue. Dean gives him what he hopes is an encouraging smile. “When I was... bad... and I had all those things… the... the leviathans... writhing inside me... I caused a lot of suffering on earth.” Cas pinches his eyes shut and lets out a stuttering breath. “I…. I devastated Heaven, Dean. I vaporized thousands of my own kind, and I… I can't go back.”

Fear grips Dean suddenly. They’ll kill him if he does, won’t they?! “Because if you do, the angels will kill you?”

Cas is shaking his head again. “Because if I see what Heaven's become…” He opens his eyes and meets Dean’s gaze. “If I see what…” He sighs. “What I made of it... I'm afraid I might kill myself.”

The world drops out from under Dean. Drawing Cas up tightly in his arms, he allows himself exactly five seconds of balls to the wall, unadulterated panic. One, two...

Of course, Sam has impeccable timing. Mumbling, he rubs the sleep from his eyes. “Y’guys alright?”

“We’re fine, Sam.” Cas responds when he notices Dean is floundering when he tries to speak. He kisses the hunter’s forehead as some kind of apology and shifts to sit up in the bed. 

Sam averts his gaze from the angel’s now bare chest. And then he jumps, jumps right back into the job so fast that even Dean’s head is spinning. “So I, uh, got something. I was going to tell you earlier but…”

...three, four, five. Dean inhales sharply. He vows to protect Cas at any cost whether he likes it or not before turning around to face Sammy. He’s about to speak when Cas does instead. “Good. Excellent. What?” 

Dean shuffles around to face Sam who pointedly looking the other way. “So this black-hole guy... before he tried the bank, he robbed a house across from the park where Gary blew a gasket.”

It’s there just out of his mind’s grasp, Dean realizes as his mind zeroes in on the case; steering clear of any further emotional outbursts. He’ll have to come to term with Cas’ words later. “So, uh, what… you think the house heist and Gary's corpse are connected?”

“According to the file, they happened at pretty much the exact same time.” Sam stands up and retrieves a map from the table. He hesitates for a second before spreading it out in front of Dean’s blanket clad legs on the bed. “Here. Check this out. Okay. Here's the house, and Gary died across the street here. And that building from this morning – right there. The black hole hit that, too.”

Cas humming against his shoulder, Dean nods his head. It makes as much sense as anything. “Let me guess. That’s where, uh, what's his name took a swan dive.” Sam nods back. “All right. I'll bite. What about the others?”

“Well, those are the places that stuff got stolen. But nobody got dead. Take away the graffiti, and these all look like just normal smash-and-grabs. But I made a few phone calls…” Sam moves to hand them a police file only to blush at the sight of his big brother curled under the arm of an angel. He smiles meekly and hands it to Cas who takes it and begins to thumb through the contents. “I talked to some people who are nearby, neighbors and whatnot, and they reported a whole lot of crazy.”

Dean twists to try and see the pictures and articles that Cas is looking through. “Like?”

“Like a jogger bumping his head and sprouting a four-inch lump. Or a kid walking into a wall and hearing birdies. Basically, for 50 yards around each robbery, people were living in a cartoon. But it didn't last long. I mean 5, 10 minutes at each place.”

“About the length of time it would take a thief to get in and out?” Castiel asks.

Sam smiles at him and nods. “Exactly. But whatever power he's using, it’s not targeted. I mean, it's kind of like an area of effect. I mean, picture him in a bubble of weird, and anything that touches it gets daffy.”

That certainly doesn’t bode well for any of them, even Cas. “So this Animaniac can step through walls, can toss an anvil?”

“Yeah, but he's warping reality to do it. So if someone happens to be nearby meeting the girl of his dreams…” Sam starts.

And Dean finishes. “His heart makes a break for it. Okay, so smashing the rent-a-cop? That was on purpose, but the rest of them were... what, just collateral weird?”

“Maybe.” Sam admits 

“So we're looking for a thief?” Cas is slowly piecing it together. Dean is actually kind of impressed. He’s said it before and he’ll say it again; even when he’s not showing off his mega-angel skills, Cas’ not half bad at the job.

It would seems Sam agrees with him because he nods at Cas with another smile on his face. “And the deposit box he was after. Now, the house, the office, every place he's hit belonged to someone living at the Sunset Fields retirement home.”

“So you think our guy's there?” Dean asks.

“Worth a shot.”

Compartmentalizing his and Cas’ earlier conversation, not to mention their more than just a romp in the hay, Dean embraces the smile that spreads across his face. “All right. Well, let's gear up. It's wabbit season.”

Sam actually chuckles. But not Cas. He’s peering over Dean’s shoulder with a look of confusion back in place on his features. “Dean, I don't think you pronounced that correctly.”

Snorting, Dean leans in for a quick peck of a kiss. The deed is done and over with before he remembers that his brother is still standing there a few feet away… and saw.

“Yeah…” Sam sighs. “You two need to get, uh… dressed?” He grabs his maps from the bed and the police folder from Castiel. “I’ll be in the car.” He adds shrugging on a coat on toeing on his shoes. His discomfort, while obvious, isn’t what Dean had feared. “C’mon, babe.” The hunter pats Cas’ thigh. “You heard the big guy.”

***

Dr. Mahoney ends up being a complete douche; stealing from little old ladies… the works. Dean walks away from the entire with nothing but a headache. It’s normally what he’d call a good day. Except… Cas has decided not to come with him. And it was all his fault. He’d only just found him again… and he was… Maybe if Dean hadn’t pushed him so hard to contact heaven and find out what was going on. If he hadn’t always kept pushing for Cas to be perfect… then maybe just maybe he wouldn’t be leaving him… again. 

Dean would love to convince himself that he knows Cas will always do the right thing. The right thing has never been the problem, however. It’s lack of experience. The angel, his angel, has a bigger heart than any other junkless dick that Dean’s ever met. But it doesn’t always keep him out of trouble. Instead, it tends towards leading him right into the fray of battle.

Still, Dean leaves the retirement home with Sam at his side and a mess of thoughts in his head. At least… at least, Cas was alive and at least they’d shared one last time together. Him and Sammy had a job to do… maybe it would be better this way?


	14. Chapter 14

The neon glow of the diner reflects off of the damp surfaces of wet asphalt as Dean carries a couple bags of food back to the Impala. Seeing his brother is on the phone, he affects a stage whisper. “Who is it?”

Sam holds a finger up in front of Dean’s face. Smirking, Dean snorts at his brother but keeps silent as he speaks. “No, listen to me. I said hang tight.” After that, he hangs up with an angry sigh.

“Mmm… somebody’s feeling bossy.” Dean chides as he pulls out a sleeve of fries and a cheeseburger.

Ignoring his teasing, Sam reaches over and steals a fry. “We got to get.”

“Can I at least finish my burger?” He’d barely gotten it unwrapped. It was literally inches from his mouth. Inches. 

“We got a vamp kill, Dean. Carencro, Louisiana.”

The town’s name feels like it should mean something, but Dean can’t quite place it. “Huh.” He says around a mouthful of food. Baby brother getting all hopped up over a job is not going to keep him from enjoying this treasure. “It's been a while since I've had some étouffée.” Dean finally adds after swallowing a bite. “Who's the source?”

“Martin Creaser.”

Dean slams his jaw shut and stares blankly at Sam. Martin Creaser. Seriously? “Sorry... for a minute there, I thought you said Martin Creaser.” Fuck. Sammy ain’t denying it. The hell? “Crazy Martin from the loony bin?”

“Glendale Springs discharged him last month.”

Snorting, Dean shifts back against the seat. Jesus, Sam should know that just because they release you doesn’t mean all your ducks are in a row. “And? Shouldn't he be assembling toys in a padded room… chasing bumble bees?” He rewraps his burger and tosses it back into the bag. “What's he doing back on the job?”

“I asked him.”

“You what?!”

“Look, he called me when he got out, okay, asked if I had anything for him that might help him ease back into the game. He seemed okay. Mostly. So, I said yes.” Sam pauses; averting his eyes from Dean’s. “I've had him tracking Benny for the past week.”

The world comes to a grinding halt around him. “You put mostly okay Martin on Benny? Benny?!” Dean really fucking hopes that Sam can feel the daggers he shooting at him from his eyes. Seriously, what the fuck was his deal? Sicking a God damn hunter on Benny?! “What is mostly okay doing hunting at all?” 

“Not hunting, Dean ... tracking.” Sam replies as if it changes a damn thing. “Observe and report only. I was crystal clear about that.”

“Wow. I can't believe that.” The fucking guy got him out of purgatory for Christ’s sake. Sure, Sam didn’t know a whole hell of a lot about the rest of the story… but the fact that Dean wouldn’t be there today without Benny should stand for something.

“Really, Dean? You don't believe that?” Bitch-face cranked up to eleven, Sam has shifted in the car to face Dean. “Because, newsflash, Benny's a vampire!” He squints his eyes and continues. “Any hunter worth his salt isn't gonna let one just walk around freely. So, I had Martin keep tabs on him. And right now, it's looking like I made the right call.”

Bull shit. There ain’t no way that Benny spilled blood. “So Martin's saying Benny did this?” 

“Yeah.”

He wouldn’t, right? Not after all they’d been through? After all that talk about seeing something in humanity… then again, Dean had left him pretty much to the wolves. Hell, Benny probably didn’t even know Cas was back. Neither of them had bothered to contact him. If he had given into the bloodlust, it was all Dean’s fault. “Okay.”

“O… okay?!” Sam sputters.

“If Benny's in Louisiana draining folks... we should look into it.” The implication is there that Dean still doesn’t believe that Benny’s the culprit hangs heavily in the air between them. Neither brother mentions it as Dean starts the engine and they pull back out onto the highway.

***

Martin’s waiting for them when they get to Carencro. Dean’s not all that surprised to see that the guy is on edge from the get go. He looks worse for the wear than Dean had when he’d first returned from purgatory. Sighing behinds Sam’s back, he follows his brother into the other hunter’s room. 

“You said look for an eruption. How's Mount Vesuvius?” Dean cocks an eyebrow but doesn’t argue just yet. Not that Martin’s paying much mind to him yet. “I got into town about a week ago. Up until last night, nothing. He's been clean.”

He just needs to gather the facts and then figure out what the hell to do about it. “Doing what?” Dean asks as he lets his eyes skim over the room; over the case clippings and photos Martin has on the wall.

“Just minding his own business. Working at the gumbo shack.”

Huh, a vampire working for a living… that sounded more like the Benny he know. “Benny's working at the gumbo shack?”

“Yeah. Slinging hash, pouring coffee... the whole bit. And he may be Benny to you. Folks around here call him Roy.” Martin’s nodding anxiously and pacing around the room as he speaks.

Dean follows his movements around the room. The guy looks like a caged animal. “Martin, you sure you're running on a full charge?”

“Y-yeah. L-l-little s-shock therapy in the morning, and I-I'm…” He snaps his fingers. “Good to go.”  
Sighing, Dean turns around to glare at his brother. He couldn’t be serious with this shit, could he? They’d dismissed cases on far less than the wack-a-doodle Martin was presenting. 

Sam pointedly ignores him. “Tell us what happened last night.”

“So, I followed him home, just like every night. He turned up a path. I hear a scream. I catch up. Then, boom... there he is. The old coot that Roy was eyeballing at the joint... vamped.”

Something wasn’t adding up. Sure, where there was smoke there was fire but… not always. “Wait… did you actually see Benny kill the guy or not?”

“I saw enough.”

Enough. Enough?! Dude was as bad as Gordon. He kept at it like this, Martin was gonna end up vamped… or worse… ganked. “Well, then, how can you be sure it was Benny if you didn't actually see him do it?”

“B-b-because I saw Benny turn up the path, and then two seconds later, I trip over a body with its throat ripped!” Martin’s energy is zeroed in on Dean now; flaring in anger. “Look, man, you… you ever hear of Occam's Razor? Keep it simple, stupid? It's not that complicated.”

Surprisingly enough, Dean had heard of Occam’s Razor. Fact of the matter was that life wasn’t that frickin’ simple. There was always more to everything than black versus white. And just because something was the simplest and easiest to accept answer… didn’t make it the answer. “There's a lot of holes, Martin.”

“Holes? The only holes we should be looking at are in the vic's neck!”

Definitely channelling Gordon, Jesus Christ. Dean turns to Sam. “This sound like the Benny you know?”

Sam frowns at him. “I don't know Benny.”

“The Benny you know? Say what?” Martin sputters as he looks between the two of them. “Why am I getting the distinct impression that your brother is vouching for a vampire?”

“Guys, let's not argue.” Sam raises his hands as he tries to placate them. 

“Nobody's arguing, Sammy.” Dean shoots back. “But if this is Benny... and that's a big if…”

Martin interupts him. “Oh, it's him.”

He knows that raising his voice will not help the matter any… he knows. But he can’t exactly help it. Martin and Sam, Sam for fuck’s sake, are chomping at the bit to head out and gank Benny on sheer God damn principal. No proof… just principal. “I got history with the guy, okay? I'm not signing up for a witch hunt.” Dean turns an icey glare on Sam. “I owe him more than that.”

“What in God's great creation could a Winchester possibly owe a vampire?” He surges into Dean’s personal space; accusation hanging from every word. “Am I hearing this right?”

Dean stares down the bridge of his nose at the other hunter. “Look, until we get the facts, we stow the bloodlust and we work this case right, or we work it separately.”

“Doing it right would be separating his head from his shoulders.” Martin shoots back; eying Sam as he speaks.

Turning to his brother, Dean pleads. “I just need some time, Sammy.”

“Oh, yeah. Let the fang take another life? I don't think so.” Martin spouts off.

Nodding at Dean, Sam sighs. “How much time do you need?”

Martin’s eyes widen as he looks between the two brothers again. “You're not actually considering this?”

Yeah, he fucking is. Though, Dean had to admit he’d been worried that Sam wouldn’t even allow him that. “Couple hours, tops.”

“And what if it turns out to be Benny?” Sam replies coolly. 

Fuck’s sake, it’s not! “Then it's Benny, and I'll deal with it!”

“Couple hours, Dean. No more.” 

Scowling at his brother tone, Dean clenches his jaw. “I'll be in touch.” He mutters as he heads for the door. Martin tries to follow him. Dean slams it in his face.

***

The gumbo shack is everything Dean thought it would be. Whistling to himself, he walks in. The smell of seafood and seasoning is thick in the air. It smells glorious. He settles himself at the counter; smiling as the waitress approaches. “Actually, I already know what I want.”

“Let me guess... gumbo?”

She’s cute, he has to admit. Chucking, Dean shakes his head. “Was gonna be the gumbo til I saw…” He clicks his tongue as he points. “…pie.”

“Well, the special's pecan.”

Nodding his head, Dean replies. “Course it is. Let's do that.” The waitress grins and walks away. In her absence, Dean takes a moment to look around. Behind the counter there’s a photography of Benny and the waitress. Dean watches her closely as she returns empty handed. She’s not acting like a newly fledged vamp. 

“Bad news.”

More’s the pity. In any case, he had a job to do here; a job that could very well save Benny. “You're out of pecan. Story of my life. Uh, that's all right. Maybe you can make it up to me. I'm actually looking for an old friend of mine. I heard he's kicking around these parts. His name's Roy.”

“Well, Roy works the night shift here. I mean, if we're talking about the same Roy.” She replies coyly.

Details, he needs details to cinch it. “Uh, yeah, he, uh, putts around in a... a beat-up camper. Thing looks like a rolling death trap.”

The waitress laughs. “Yeah, I thought I was the only one who gave him trouble over that piece of junk.”

Chuckling along with her, Dean’s thankful he’s still able to charm his way through stuff like this. “You wouldn't happen to know where he's parking that thing these days, would you?”

“Well, he, uh, was parking it out back, but just called to tell me he's gone up the road to Mill Creek for a few days.”

Well, shit. That didn’t bode well. Still, he was going to give Benny the benefit of the doubt. “Okay. Uh, did he say why?”

“Oh... fishing, I think. He really deserves a break. He's been working doubles for the last two weeks straight.”

Course he has. “Um, listen, I, uh, I tell you what.” Dean grabs a slip of paper and pen and begins writing on it. “If he pops up before I can find him, you do me a favor and just have him give me a buzz. Or…” He slides the piece of paper over to the waitress. “ ...could just drop a dime yourself.” He flashes her his brightest and flirtiest smile. 

“Sure thing…” She picks up the piece of paper. “...Dean.”

Sliding off his stool, Dean rolls his shoulders as he asks. “And, uh, you are...?”

“Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth. All right. Take a rain check on that pie?” Dean raps his knuckles on the countertop before turning to leave. He’s got a lead on where Benny is at, now he just has to track him down. He’s dialing the vampire’s number before he even gets back to the car. He gets voicemail… again. “Benny. I got a body here in Carencro with two holes in it, and I just found out you went fishing. Do I need to tell you what this looks like?” He hates the accusatory tone in his own voice and he hopes like hell his faith in Benny isn’t misplaced. With Cas leaving him, Dean’s not exactly keen on throwing what him and the vamp have together away. Hell, even if he is the one chowing down on the locals… Dean’s going to want to know why before he beheads him.

***  
It’s always forests. Why is it always forests? One hand tucked into his front pocket and the other holding a machete behind his back, Dean approaches Benny only after he’s finished washing the blood off of his hands. 

Before he can announce his presence, Benny is talking. “It's not me, Dean.”

“Now, which me are we talking about... Benny, or Roy?”

The vampire turns to face him. “I'm just trying to blend in.”

Dean wants to believe. He does. The fresh grave a few feet away isn’t real helpful with that. “Blend in? Who'd you plant, Benny?”

“Victim number two. If you're concerned about the missed calls, I didn't want to get you involved.” The unspoken reference to the last time they’d seen one another floats between them. Benny drags his eyes up and down Dean’s body. Any other time, it would’ve appeared lewd maybe even a little flirtatious. Today? It’s calculating. “Now... Want to safety that thing…” He slides a hand over his own machete. “...talk a little bit or what?”

Smirking, Dean draws his eyes over Benny’s blade as he pulls his own weapon out from behind his back. “I'm all ears.”

Benny, for what it’s worth, doesn’t hesitate. “Rogue vamp. Came into the cafe a couple nights ago. Youngster goes by the name of Desmond. He, uh, he remembers me from the good old days.”

“The good old days?”

Licking his lips, Benny gives Dean an easy smile despite the fact that they’ve both got a blade trained on one another. “I know it's hard to believe, but I haven't always been this cute and cuddly. He's chasing a memory, Dean. That's all. He's crewing up a new nest. He's hoping I can give him some cred. I told him no.”

Dean nods. It not that hard to believe knowing Benny like he does. Still, he has to be thorough. “Alright. So far, so good. Let's get to the part about the blood.”

A wry chuckle escaping him, Benny continues. “Didn't want to take no for an answer. He's trying to roust me out, leaving dead bodies in my wake till I sign up. Two bodies in two days. No amateur is gonna kick me out of my hometown, Dean. Not this time.”

That give the hunter pause. Dean quickly replays what he’s seen of the town in his mind. “Hometown? You grew up here?”

Nodding, Benny replies. “Born and bred. With Andrea gone and you hunting again, seemed like the right time for a homecoming... you two being the only ones who keep all my ducks in a row. Went back to my old job at the cafe. I even found someone to hold myself accountable to. Best kind of someone, Dean. Family.”

The pieces fall together suddenly. “Elizabeth.” Sheathing his machete, Dean takes a few steps towards Benny and then a few more past him. 

“My great-granddaughter.”

Eyes widening, Dean cracks his neck and lets out a slow breath. “Really?” 

“Now, hold it, now. You didn't…”

“Uh, no.” Dean chuckles as he turns around to face Benny. “Nothing more than the job entailed.” Licking his now dry lips, he give the vampire a serious once over. “Does she know?”

“No. No, as far as she's concerned, I was just another drifter. I'd like to keep it that way. It's been tough walking the line here after all those years in purgatory not having to deal with the hunger. But Elizabeth... She keeps me honest. I finally feel like I got a handle on this thing.”

Well, that was rather cocky… even for Benny. “Handle on things? Benny, you've got two stiffs on your hands and two hunters on your ass!”

Snorting, Benny shakes his head. “Oh, please. The half-wit who found me at the cafe? I'll take my chances with him.”

Granted, if it was just Martin… Dean wouldn’t be all that worried that Benny couldn’t handle himself. The simple truth was that Martin wasn’t alone. “That half-wit was sent by my brother, and trust me... my brother's not someone you want to mess with.”

“I don't have time to worry about them, Dean. I didn't think Desmond had an ounce of steel in his spine, but I was wrong about that. So now I'm gonna do what I should have done two days ago, which is put him back where he belongs.”

Deciding that the posturing and circling one another needed to end, Dean moves in close. Chest to chest, he reaches up and grips the back of Benny’s neck tightly. “You know there's only one way to do that, right? And that is for you to sit on the sideline while I convince Sam and Martin to go after Desmond. They see you out there, they don't care if you're gonna be collecting for the March of Dimes. They are gonna slice first and ask questions later. You know that.”

Benny draws his nose along Dean’s cheek. “You really think they'll go for that?”

Sighing, Dean shrugs. He doesn’t know. He really doesn’t know. “I have to try, Benny.” Dean presses a gentle kiss to the corner of the vampire’s mouth. “...I can’t just let them kill you.”

Curling his fingers over the lines of Dean’s jaw, Benny nuzzles into the chaste kiss. “Much obliged, brother. Much obliged.”

***

For what little he thinks it’s worth, Dean returns to Martin’s room to try and get him and his brother to see reason. It’s as impossible as he’d assumed it would be in the beginning. Martin won’t even fucking stop for five damn seconds and listen. “Let me get this straight. I follow your boy... down a freaking path and trip over fresh vamp kill, and then you practically catch him in the act of burying a second body, and you're still taking his side?”

“Vampires pick people off from the outskirts of town, okay?” Dean ignores Martin’s condescing huff. “Not in the cafes that they work in with their great-grandkids. In fact, killing any human… it's not his style.”

Martin’s twitching as he nearly spits his response at Dean. “Not his style? Not his style?!”

Sam aims to soothe over Martin’s outburst. “Listen, Dean, we came here on a dead body. You asked for some time, and now there's another dead body. Are we just going on trust here?”

They both turn their eyes to him. Fuck it. “Yes.”

“Okay?” Sam frowns at him. Still, it’s clear he’s trying to see things from Dean’s side… he just can’t. “Because we've killed for a lot less, and you know how these things turn out for us.”

“Yes, I do. Too well. In fact, every relationship I have ever had has gone to crap at some point. But the one thing I can say about Benny… he has never let me down.” Even though Dean’s let him down time and time again.

“Relationship?!” His brother gasps out. “Dean. Come on.” Dean sniffs and jutts his chin out. Shaking his head, Sam pulls a face as he replies. “Huh. Well, good on you, Dean. Must feel great finally finding someone you can trust after all these years.”

Dean drops his attention to the floor for a moment, sighs, and then looks back up at Sam. “All I'm saying is that Benny is innocent.”

“No. You're too close to this.” 

Too close? He’s got no fucking clue how close this shit is. “You're not gonna find him. And if you do, I'm gonna tell you this. You'll be lucky to get out alive.” Dean’s gaze is steel as he turns from his brother to Martin. “And you go with him, you're a dead man... period.”

“These are innocent lives we're talking about, Dean. And you're willing to risk that on Benny's word alone? Sam looms in front of him. Dean isn’t going to be intimidated. There ain’t no way. “Damn right I am.” Anything he’s about to add is lost as pain flares at the back of his skull and everything goes black. 

***

He wakes up cuffed to a radiator. Skin flushed with anger, Dean digs his fingers around a nail in the floorboard. It takes longer than he’d like, but eventually he has it in hand and is picking the lock to the handcuffs. “Come on.” Dean grumbles as he shoves himself off of the floor. His reaches for the phone in his pocket only to find that it’s now across the room on the bed. They’re not going to stop him from warning Benny that easily. Wiping the blood that’s now dripping over his face, Dean dials Benny’s number. He grabs a washcloth and wets it down as the phone rings. 

“What'd they say?”

He wipes the blood off of his neck and jaw. “They didn't go for it. They're on their way to you. I'd get scarce.”

“No offense, Dean, but your little brother doesn't exactly put chills up my spine.”

Dean clears his throat. “Benny, listen to me. Do not underestimate my little brother, okay?” You haven’t seen him do half the shit I have. “He can and will kill you given the chance.” He wipes the blood with a hiss.

“All right. So, what now?”

He’s gathering up supplies from around Martin’s room as he speaks.“I go find Desmond.”

“You take me with.” Benny challenges.

Halfway out of the building, Dean pauses to reply. “Hey, I just told you... best thing you can do is lay low.”

“That ain't gonna work this time, bub. You take me with, or I don't tell you where he is.”

Son of a bitch. It wasn’t that he thought Benny couldn’t handle himself in a fight. Martin and Sam were an unpredictable element. Something none of them had seen the likes of or come up against in purgatory. He couldn’t promise they’d all make it out alive. “You know where he is?”

“He said he's not gonna stop the killing till I join his little nest. Two bodies is enough. I told him I'm in.”

Dean picks up his step now; practically running for the Impala. “Benny!”

Benny’s voice is calmer than it really should be. “Dean, this is my fight. Are you in or are you out?”

Shit. He doesn’t have a whole lot of choices left. Dean sighs loudly as he slides behind the wheel. “Of course, I’m fucking in. Fine, we’ll do this together. Now, where the hell are you?”

***

Benny’s waiting for him along the side of the road; machete in hand. As he climbs out of the Impala, Dean can’t help but once again be reminded of purgatory. Nostrils flaring almost as if on instinct, he drags Benny into an uneasy hug. “This the place, huh?” Flinging open the trunk, Dean shifts a few items around. “So, what's the plan? I hang back while you guys do some trust falls and binge-drinking?” He slides a syringe of dead man’s blood in his coat pocket. 

“Man, if I didn't know you better, I'd say you have an extremely low opinion of us vamps.”

Dean grabs Benny’s jacket pulls him close. “Pssh. Call it healthy skepticism.” He grins as the cool night air fogs up Dean’s breath as it rises between them.

Desmond’s shipyard ends up being a lot closer to land than Benny’s maker. As interesting as the boat rides had been last time, Dean’s glad to remain landlocked. He’s not so happy to be committing a bit of the old B&E on an unlit shipyard building. Yeah, vamps were light sensitive but this was flippin’ ridiculous. Flashlight in hand, Dean and Benny split up to find their target. They’ve hunted like this before, so it’s easy enough to fall back into the habit. 

Unfortunately, Dean’s senses aren’t as keen as a vampire’s because Desmond gets the drop on him. To make matters worse not only does he get the drop on him, has him pinned the the floor and is straddling the hunters hips as he leers. “Benny never told me he was bringing a friend.” 

Sighing, Dean waxes nonchalance at his predicament. “You're not gonna talk a lot, are you?” He reaches for the dead man’s blood. “I've been dealing with crazy... all day.” Taking a quick jab at the vampire with the syringe, Dean aims for its throat. Only Desmond catches his hand and bears down with shocking force. The syringe breaks under the inhuman pressure of the grip. Groaning in pain, Dean doesn’t realize he’s been overpowered until Desmond slashes at his neck with a jagged fingernail. He can feel the blood oozing out of the wound and watches as the vampire slowly licks it from his fingers. When Desmond snarls and lunges, Dean thinks he’s done for. 

Thankfully, about that time, Benny bothers to show up. He hauls Desmond up and off of Dean with a snarl of his own. The decapitation is quick and brutal.

“Son of a... It took you long enough!” Dean grouses as the damn vamp’s head lands with a thud next to him. 

“You've lost a step, friend.” Benny offers his hand. “You need to lay off the junk food.”

Yeah, right. Dean lets Benny pull him up off of the ground. Reaching up to his neck, he fingers the wound Desmond had given him. Hissing as the dirt and salt on his fingers make contact with the cut, Dean winces. “Aah!” A single moment stretches into two. It doesn’t go unnoticed by the hunter that Benny’s eyes haven’t left his neck. “You okay?

Benny raises his eyes to Dean’s. “I'm fine.” He replies before turning and walking slowly away. Dean follows him outside, holding a cloth over his neck. Benny’s eyes are scanning the water front. There’s a weight on his shoulders that wasn’t there before. He turns to Dean with a sigh. “My life here is over, isn't it?”

“Afraid so. Once word gets out…” Dean reaches down with his free hand and grips Benny’s in his own. The act is near childlike considering their past relations but he knows well enough that hugging a vampire, even one like Benny, isn’t a smart move. “The machete swingers that'll come for you... You can't take them all. It's impossible. And even if you could…” Dean brings Benny’s hands to his lips and brushes his lips over the knuckles.

“We'd have a problem.” The vampire finishes. 

He presses the same knuckles to his face as he replies. “Guys like us, we don't get a home. We don't get family.” We don’t get friends and we most certainly don’t get lovers.

Benny’s voice is a low whisper when he responds. “You got Sam.”

“Yeah.” Dean’s eyes slide shut as the weight on his and Benny’s shoulders seems to increase. He came down here hoping to leave with the vampire at his side. It was obvious that was not going to happen. Cas had left him and now, he was being forced to leave Benny. Dean didn’t even have to ask who he’d pissed off to cause such loneliness to befall his life; hell, there was probably a line of people and things waiting to damn him. “Benny, you got to go deep underground, where nobody knows who you are.”

“Yeah.” The vampire says as he drops Dean’s hand. “I got one last thing I got to do though.” 

***

They’ve been standing shoulder to shoulder outside the gumbo shack for well over a half an hour watching Elizabeth work before Dean speaks. “Time to go, buddy.”

Benny hauls him into a bear of a hug. “Thanks for not giving up on me, brother.”

“Don’t give me a reason to.” Dean mumbles into his neck. When the draw apart, Benny takes the hunter’s face between his hands and pulls him in for a lingering kiss. Benny pinches Dean’s chin between his thumb and fingers before stepping back and heading towards his vehicle. As he drives away, Dean raises his hand in farewell before following suit and climbing into the Impala.

Dean dials up Martin as soon as he’s a few miles down the road. “Look, I'm just calling to let you know that the situation is resolved. Benny was not lying. There was another vamp, and we ganked him... together.”

“Oh. That's good, Dean.”

Martin’s voice has an unhinged quality to it that sets Dean on edge. He cannot wait to get the hell out of dodge. “Yeah, shut up and listen to me. Benny's long gone, and he won't be coming back, ever. So for your own sake, do not follow him. Are we clear?”

“You don't have to worry about me, Dean. I'm long gone, too.”

“Where’s Sam?”

“Sam? Oh, I’d say he’s probably still unconscious back at the hotel. See, he didn’t take real kindly to what I did to you back there… chained him up in the shower.”

Son of a bitch. “Martin?” The tires screech as Dean does a 180 degree turn at a crossroads and accelerates.

“Yeah?”

“Find a new line of work.” Bearing down on the accelerator, Dean heads back to town as fast as the Impala will take him. His attention only half on the road, he tries Sam’s cell. He leaves a voicemail after his third attempt. Martin is dead if he ever sees him again. Dead.

Dean’s halfway back to town when when his phone finally rings. “Sam?!”

“Dean?” The voice on the other end of the line is soft, weak, and female. Definitely not Sam. 

“Elizabeth?!”

“Y...you told me to call you if I saw... him.”

Dean’s chest siezes. Benny, you stupid shit, what did you do? “What do you mean? Roy? Is – is he there right now? Elizabeth, what's going on?”

“Just come.”

***

Elizabeth is sitting on the steps outside the cafe when Dean pulls up in the Impala. He notices that her hands are shaking as he approaches. When he gets within a couple feet of her, she points in the direction of the cafe. Dean takes a cloth out of a pocket and holds it to the cut on her neck. He puts a hand on her shoulder as he walks past her into the cafe. 

The blood, he mournfully expects when he enters. The place reeks of it. Dean walks carefully across the cafe; stepping over piles of broken glass. He finds Martin’s body on the floor in a large pool of blood. The hunter’s knife is lying next to his head. Only there’s no wound on his throat, no savage bite torn through his neck. The blood appears to be seeping from his ears and… his eyes are burnt completely out. 

The room spins as Dean turns and searches the shadows for him, for them. His heart is beating hard and fast in his chest as he comes full circle. It’s so loud that he almost doesn’t hear Cas calling out his name from behind the counter.

Dean scrambles over the counter without a second thought. He finds Benny there shoved behind Cas’ crouched form. The angel regards him warily. “I was not sure you would be the one to come.”

“Cas?!” Dean drags his eyes from the angel to the vampire and back. “... you… you saved him?”

“I did. However, Benny is convinced that your brother will… seek vengence.”

“Let me handle my brother.” He drags Cas up and off of Benny. “Son of a bitch. Where have you been?!” Dean hugs him tightly. The vampire rises to his feet behind them. He’s got blood dripping from his face and a bruise forming along his jaw. Dean really wants to know what the hell went down, he does. But right now, he just wants to know that they’re both alright. 

He grabs Benny’s wrist as he tries to sneak past them. “Hey, where you going?” 

Any protest that was on the vampire’s lips dies as Cas’ hand joins Dean’s on his arm. Bowing his head, Benny allows a small smile to creep over his lips. “As much as I’d love to stay and enjoy this little reunion…” He squints at Dean. “Martin’s got your brother chained up somewhere.”

Castiel releases him with a start. “Sam…” He breathes out; his eyes searching Dean’s for a sign that the younger Winchester is unharmed.

“Martin said…” Dean starts. “Martin said he had him back at his hotel room.” Color rises to his cheeks. “I thought he’d sided with Martin and gone after you.” Dean cuts his eyes at Benny. “I didn’t realize he was…”

“Was what, Dean?” Castiel asks quietly.

“Unconscious in the bathroom?” Benny snickers at that to which Dean snaps his fingers at him in reprimand. “...hey. Heed my words, don’t underestimate him.”

The smile that had begun to spread over the vampire’s face fades away when he looks to Castiel for confirmation only to be met with angel nodded very seriously in agreement. “Well, what do you say we go rescue ourselves a hunter?”


	15. Chapter 15

They drop Elizabeth off on their way back to the hotel. Benny walks her to her front door and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead. Watching them together, Dean wishes they could stay. It’s not fair to drag the vampire away from the only family he has left. It’s just that if he stays… he’s as good as dead. Elizabeth too maybe. “Why’d you do it, Cas?” He whispers as they watch the girl cling the Benny as she cries.

“Do what, Dean?” The angel replies cautiously.

“Kill Martin.” There is a moment before Cas finally speaks wherein Dean actually believes that he was going to be denied explanation. After all, it was Cas’ way to assume faith or loyalty. He had never been and probably wasn’t going to get any better about explaining himself. 

And then, Cas surprises him by answering. “Even if he had done so in self defense, Benny would never forgive himself for such an act. I simply removed the burden from him.”

Well, not an answer per se. “I get that… why?”

“Why?” Cas parrots back.

“Yeah, Cas… why? It’s not like…” Frustrated, Dean shoves himself against the back of his seat until the framework under the upholstery digs into his shoulders. 

“It is not like what, Dean?” They watch Benny wrap Elizabeth up in one last hug before he turns to head back to the Impala. “Do you believe me incapable of favoring him as I do you?”

Startled, Dean turns to look at the angel so fast his ears are ringing. “You…” He gasps; eyes wide. Son of a… why hadn’t Cas ever said anything before. “... him?

“Is that…”

“Damn it, Cas. If you ask my permission to…” 

Benny slides into the back seat just as Dean turns away from Castiel with a frustrated sigh. Even through the tears in his eyes, he lets out a low chuckle. “Do I even want to know?”

“I was simply…”

“Can it, Cas.” Dean shoves the car into gear and heads for the hotel. Castiel glares at him the entire way despite the hint of a smile never leaving the hunter’s lips. And Benny, well, he knows when to keep his mouth shut. 

Martin’s hotel room is a mess when they find it. Water is seeping out from under the bathroom door. The carpet is dark with it and squelches under their feet as they enter the room. Dean starts kicking at door almost immediately; desperate and angry grunts clawing their way out of his throat. He expects to find Sam face down in a tub of blood-tinged water. He nearly cries in relief when the door finally breaks.

Sam’s okay. He’s an angry mess; chained to a shower curtain rod that looks like it’s been on the receiving end of a demolition crew but is still somehow secured to the walls. The water is from the toilet, Dean realizes belatedly. The toilet that Sam quite possibly broke in half by kicking it in his attempts to escape. Dean’s laughing and shuffling his way through the wet debris to hug him before he remembers that Benny and Cas are right behind him.

His brother tenses in his arms. Sighing, Dean takes a heavy step back away from him. He’s reaching into his coat to find his lock pick when Cas lifts his right hand and makes a sweeping motion in the air. Sam drops from the cuffs with a shout. Dean’s quick to grab him and prevent him from falling even harder to the ground. “Hey…” He murmurs softly into his brother’s shoulder. “We thought Martin had…”. Sam’s shrugs away from him and glares past Castiel at Benny. 

“Sam.” The vampire acknowledges him curtly. He doesn’t cross the door’s threshold; just continues to stand there silent and observing. 

Falling into a familiar defensive posture, Sam is quick to ask. “Where’s Martin?” 

At first the three of them are silent, until Castiels steps forward and supplies. “Martin Creaser is dead.” 

The scowl on Sam’s face deepens. “What happened?” His focus is on Dean and Dean alone as he waits for an answer. And Dean can only gape at him in shock. How the shit is he supposed to explain everything when Sammy’s pissed like this? How does he explain that the son of a bitch went after family; that by targeting Benny, Martin might as well have been going after Sam himself? How does he explain that he was miles away when Elizabeth had called and that by the time he made it back to the shack… Castiel had manifested between the vampire and hunter; choosing to smite the latter? How did he...

Clearing his throat, Castiel steps forward. “I believe I can explain.” Dean does a double take, but doesn’t object.

“Do you?” Sam folds his arms across his chest. “You can explain why my brother allowed another hunter to be killed while this… thing… is out there draining people?!

Dean finds his words even if only out of anger. “He’s not draining people, Sam!”

Castiel frowns at Sam and cocks his head. “Your brother did not allow anything, Sam. He was not present when he met his end.”

“So, Benny drained him.” Sam takes a menacing step towards the door.

Raising his hand, Castiel shakes his head. “No.”

“How do you know, Cas?” Sam asks in exasperation. “Because he told Dean and Dean told you?!”

“Because I smote Martin.” Castiel’s response is not without emotion but it is guarded and unsure as he awaits the younger Winchester’s presumed angry response.

“Come again.”

“I smote Martin Creaser, Sam.”

Sam does a double take between his brother and Castiel. “He’s not all soul crazed again… right?”

“Soul-free.” Dean smirks.

“Sam, I know that it is difficult for you to believe, but Benny… he is not what you think.” Castiel glances over his shoulder at the vampire; a small smile on the corner of his lips. “Like me.”

The angel’s comments seem to draw a hidden pride out of the vampire. Shoulders squared, Benny addresses Sam. “Is it so uncommon to meet one of my kind that wishes to renounce their curse?”

Mouth twitching at Benny’s words, Sam shift from one foot and then to the other. “No, It’s not.” Sighing, he rubs at the back of his neck. “Look... I don’t trust you.” He glances between Dean and Castiel. “Or him, not entirely… but I do trust my brother.”


	16. Epilogue

A sight to behold before this old man’s eyes. From my place in the shadows I watched as the hunter, our hunter, laid the angel down; pressing his body up and over him. And when their lips met, oh brother, the heavens themselves self cried. 

It was with indulgent rapture that I watched Castiel arch into Dean’s mouth as it blazed a trail down his throat. His blue eyes staring unwavering into my own. I watched as his walls fell; one kiss, one lick, one touch at a time. 

Our hunter, peeled away each item of clothing until the angel lay bare before him; wrecked and defiant in his nakedness. And then using only the scrape of his teeth and the wetness of his tongue, he proceeded to undo sweet Castiel

They catch me watching and beckon me forth but I decline; satisfied still, to observe and wait out the drop in my very own anchor pool. Which one of them will break first? Dean allows for a moment of lustful thanks before he dips down and capture’s the angel lips once more.

They move in tandem, their bodies not unlike the ebb and flow of the ocean. And I allow myself to be swept away in their wake; overcome by the keening absolutions of Castiel’s cries and the desperate reverence that claws its way out of our hunter’s gut. Their coupling is breathtaking; hard lines of pale skin and even harder lines of golden muscles. Red lips and flushed chests. Cocks weeping to be touched. Dean takes everything he wants and a little bit more and our angel allows it; magnanimous and finally free he allows it.

Penance finally found in the arm’s of his achilles heel and under the watchful eye of a pogue turned repentant damned, Castiel’s recidivation becomes his salvation.


End file.
